HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections

General Objective

Establish a collaborative structure between the groups that investigate HIV infection and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in Spain, creating a work dynamic that synergistically integrates clinical research, basic research and epidemiology to make headway in the different challenges presented by the changing epidemic of HIV/AIDS and STIs.

Specific objectives: lines of research

• Provide strategic infrastructures and innovative procedures to integrate epidemiological, clinical, and health care utilization data, biological samples, and patient-reported outcomes to support public health action and policy implementation to reduce morbidity, mortality, and ongoing transmission, related to HIV and STIs.
• Describe the contemporary and evolutionary clinical characteristics of the HIV epidemic in Spain with the aim of improving the management and life of people with HIV infection and providing evidence for treatment guidelines.
• Characterize the HIV-infected population in Spain (including the epidemiology of drug-transmitted resistance and the different subtypes), both in adults and in the pediatric and adolescent population.
• Improve the management of STIs, hepatitis and other viral co-infections.
• Assess the implications of long-term HIV infection and therapy exposure, and their relationship to the impact of aging in the HIV population and the development of non-AIDS-defining events.
• Conduct investigator-led intervention studies and/or clinical trials that address strategic questions related to key issues in the clinical management of HIV-infected patients, such as antiretroviral therapy, comorbidities, co-infection, and the cure of viral hepatitis and STIs.
• Provide a better understanding of the mechanisms involved in the control of HIV infection, the factors associated with immunological damage despite antiretroviral treatment and the study and development of strategies aimed at viral reservoirs.
• Develop a prototype platform in the fields of prophylactic and therapeutic HIV vaccines and other prevention tools.