Maternal and Pediatric Infectious Disease Branch (MPIDB)

Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases

Gap: Emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases are ongoing threats and often have a disparate impact on pregnant women, infants, children, and adolescents.

Priority: Study emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases that affect pregnant women, infants, children, and adolescents, including their impact on the pediatric nervous system.

HIV: Adolescent Prevention

Gap: While effective biomedical modalities to prevent HIV infection in adults now exist, none have been shown to be effective in adolescents.

Priority: Investigate ways to increase the use of interventions to prevent HIV (e.g., feasible, acceptable, safe, and scalable strategies to increase uptake of and adherence to HIV prevention modalities) in adolescents and young adults, and assess their effectiveness.

HIV: Adverse Pregnancy and Infant Outcomes Related to Prevention or Treatment

Gap: With widespread use of lifelong antiretroviral therapy and newer agents, more women are conceiving while on therapy. Thus, while perinatal HIV transmission rates have declined, concerns persist that use of antiretroviral medications may increase adverse pregnancy and infant outcomes (e.g., preterm birth).

Priority: Identify and investigate causes of adverse pregnancy and infant outcomes that may be associated with antiretroviral therapy in pregnancy and methods to prevent them.

HIV: Cure/Remission in Infants and Children

Gap: HIV cure strategies may be different for infants and children than adults.

Priority: Characterize HIV reservoirs and persistence, and pursue potential strategies, including vaccine- and other immune-based therapy research, for HIV cure/remission in infants and children.

Immune Cross-Talk in Infant Immune System Development

Gap: Infectious disease may influence immune cross-talk in pregnant women and their fetuses, thus affecting development of infant immunity.

Priority: Support research to understand the immune cross-talk in pregnant women, placenta, and fetus, including contribution of microbiome/virome and host-pathogen interactions on development of the infant immune system.

Congruent with MPIDB’s mission, a number of research programs and networks are supported to improve health outcomes among our populations of interest. Two major priorities for the clinical research networks are: 1) HIV and TB therapeutics in infants, children, adolescents, and pregnant women; and 2) epidemiologic research in individuals living with HIV or at risk of HIV, including infants, children, adolescents, and young adults who were exposed to HIV in utero.

• Adolescent HIV Infection and Disease: Focuses on understanding HIV transmission dynamics, the course of infection, and its management in youth, including those who are infected perinatally
• Perinatally HIV-Infected Youth: Examines the long-term effects of HIV and its treatment on the growth and development, sexual maturation, organ function, and socialization of perinatally HIV-infected adolescents and young adults, both domestically and internationally  
• Epidemiology and Natural History of HIV Infection and HIV-Related Co-Infections in Infants, Children, and Adolescents: Investigates optimizing linkage to care, monitoring of therapy, adherence and durability of therapy, development of drug resistance, short- and long-term outcomes, epidemiology, treatment, and prevention of important co-infections, and other issues
• Epidemiology and Natural History of HIV Infection and HIV-Related Co-Infections in Women: Focuses on gender-specific manifestations of HIV, including natural history, impact of therapy, transmission, and interactions with hormones
• HIV and Other Infections in Pregnancy and the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (MTCT): Aims to prevent MTCT and includes studies in pregnant women, effects of in utero drug exposures on the fetus, long-term follow-up, and evaluation of long-term adverse consequences of exposure
• Non-HIV Infectious Disease Research: Addresses research gaps in children and pregnant women related to many HIV-associated co-infections
• Therapeutic Research in HIV and Related Co-Morbidities: Evaluates new and improved therapies for treatment of HIV infection and its associated complications in pregnant women, infants, children, and adolescents
• Adolescent Medicine Trials Network for HIV/AIDS Interventions: Only domestic, multicenter research network devoted to the health and well-being of HIV-infected and at-risk adolescents and young adults
• Prevention and Treatment through a Comprehensive Care Continuum for HIV-affected Adolescents in Resource Constrained Settings (PATC³H): International research program to prevent and treat HIV infection among adolescents and young adults in seven African countries and Brazil
• Centers for AIDS Research: Provides administrative and shared support to synergistically enhance and coordinate high-quality AIDS research projects
• International epidemiologic Databases to Evaluate AIDS (IeDEA): Collects and analyzes maternal and pediatric HIV/AIDS data from seven international regional data centers: four in Africa and one each in the Asia-Pacific region, the Central/South America/Caribbean region, and North America
• International Maternal, Pediatric, Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trials Network: Evaluates potential therapies for HIV infection and its related co-infections in infants, children, adolescents, and pregnant women, including clinical trials of HIV/AIDS interventions for prevention of MTCT
• Microbicide Trials Network: Develops and evaluates microbicides—products to prevent HIV transmission
• NICHD Domestic & International Pediatric & Maternal HIV & other High-Priority Infectious Diseases Clinical Studies Network: Conducts trials related to preventing and treating HIV infection and its complications in newborns, infants, children, adolescents, and pregnant women
• Pediatric HIV/AIDS Cohort Study: Examines long-term safety of fetal and infant exposure to antiretroviral therapy and effects of perinatally acquired HIV infection in adolescents and young adults
• Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study/Women’s Interagency HIV Study Combined Cohort Study: Investigates ways to understand and reduce the impact of chronic health conditions that affect people in the United States living with HIV

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) HIV/AIDS website: CDC provides information on HIV/AIDS-related health topics
• U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) information for consumers on HIV/AIDS: FDA responsibilities include a variety of HIV/AIDS-related issues, including review and oversight in areas related to drugs, biologics and medical devices for the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS and AIDS-related conditions
• AIDSinfo: Contains information on HIV/AIDS-related health topics, treatment and prevention guidelines, approved and investigational HIV/AIDS drugs, vaccine research, and a search tool for HIV/AIDS-specific clinical trials
• WHO consolidated guidelines on the use of antiretroviral drugs for treating and preventing HIV infection : Provides practice guidelines related to antiretroviral therapy

• Sonia Lee, Acting Branch Chief
  Main Research Areas: Adolescent HIV infection; neurodevelopment and assessment; behavioral science, including HIV infection and HIV exposure in infants, children, and adolescents; programs and networks
• Samantha Calabrese, Public Health Analyst
  Main Research Areas: Portfolio analysis methodology; epidemiology; Zika
• Nahida Chakhtoura, Medical Officer
  Main Research Areas: Epidemiology and natural history of HIV infection in pregnant and non-pregnant women; Zika; women's health; cohort studies and clinical trials
• Bill Kapogiannis, Medical Officer
  Main Research Areas: Adolescent HIV prevention and treatment; youth HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis; youth HIV care continuum; HIV vaccines; emerging infectious diseases; adult and pediatric infectious diseases
• Eric Lorenzo, Health Scientist Administrator
  Main Research Areas: HIV cure; HIV persistence/latency and reservoirs
• Sai Majji, Program Officer
  Main Research Areas: Vaccines, immune-prophylactics, and therapeutics research in HIV, TB, and malaria infections in infants, children, adolescents, and pregnant and non-pregnant women; regulatory affairs and clinical trial monitoring and data management
• Jack Moye, Medical Officer
  Main Research Areas: Laboratory quality assurance; biospecimen repository management; virology and immunology research; epidemiologic cohort studies and clinical trials
• Denise Russo, Deputy Branch Chief
  Main Research Areas: HIV in women; infant immunity
• Ayanna Brummell, Extramural Scientific Assistant