This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
NIH renews research grant for AIDS Clinical Trials Group
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
The Miriam Hospital in Providence, R.I., has received a $2.4 million grant renewal from the NIH. The grant will support research efforts of the AIDS Clinical Trials Group, according to a press release.
The AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) is a global network of 60 research sites whose operations and laboratory are based in Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. The group conducts trials that test therapeutic interventions focused on HIV-associated inflammation and resulting organ disease, tuberculosis, viral hepatitis and HIV cure.
“The ACTG is an important HIV clinical studies network that, for example, proved that mother-to-child transmission could be dramatically reduced by having the pregnant woman take the anti-HIV medication AZT. Results of other ACTG studies have changed how we treat HIV infection, and have resulted in the Department of Health and Human Services HIV guideline changes leading to improvements nationally in the standard of care for HIV treatment,” Karen Tashima, MD, director of HIV clinical studies and clinical research site leader of ACTG unit at the Miriam Hospital, said in the release.
Tashima was the lead researcher and study chair for the OPTIONS trial, a multisite study that found patients with drug-resistant HIV can achieve viral suppression without taking nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors. Eliminating nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors from a treatment regimen can lessen pill burden and adverse effects.