2014 CHAART Scientific Meeting

2014 CHAART Scientific Meeting – Wednesday, May 14 – Friday, May 16, 2014
Washington D.C.

The CHAART Scientific Meeting took place May 14-16, 2014 in Washington D.C. The meeting was organized by the Consortium to improve Outcomes in HIV/AIDS, Alcohol, Aging, and multi-Substance use (COMpAAAS) and included active participation by the NIAAA scientific staff and other CHAART members: Brown University ARCH, ARCH (Johns Hopkins), and SHARC (University of Florida). The meeting served to facilitate communication and collaboration among the consortia, and to update NIAAA and CHAART on study progress, new analyses, and future directions. The URBAN ARCH consortium was well-represented at the meeting. Dr. Samet gave an overview of the consortium, while Carly Bridden oriented the group to our website, urbanarch.org. Six URBAN ARCH investigators were selected to give oral presentations during the meeting’s plenary sessions:

    • Adam Carrico: Heavy Alcohol Use and Monocyte Activation in HIV+ not on ART
    • Judith Tsui, presented by Jeffrey Samet: Pain is Associated with Risky Drinking Over Time Among HIV+ in St. Petersburg, Russia
    • Nadia Fairbairn: Mortality in HIV+ Substance Users in Russia
    • Sarah Woolf-King: Biomarkers of Semen Exposure with HIV+ Ugandan Women Who Consume Alcohol: A Feasible and Acceptable Way to Objectively Assess Recent Unprotected Sex
    • Judith Hahn: Unhealthy Alcohol Use Measured by Phosphatidylethanol: Preliminary Data and Cross-Cohort Analysis Proposal
    • Matthew Freiberg: Zinc for HIV Disease among Alcohol Users

Drs. Samet and Saitz were invited to moderate two of the plenary sessions: Alcohol, Immune Function, and Multimorbidity in HIV, and CHAART Intervention Studies Status Update, respectively. We also had two poster presentations:

    • C. Bridden; D.M. Cheng; N Gnatienko; G. Patts; E. Blokhina; M. Freiberg ; C. E. Chaisson; T. Yaroslavtseva; S. D. Weiser; E. Krupitsky; J. H. Samet. The association between heavy alcohol use and food insecurity among HIV-infected individuals in St. Petersburg, Russia.
    • R. Saitz; T.C. Heeren; M.R. Winter; M.F. Holick; M. Sullivan; A.Y. Walley; A.S. Ventura; S.M. Meli; A.K. Turner; J.H. Samet. No association detected between alcohol consumption and bone mineral density in HIV infected adults with substance dependence.

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Pictures (l-r): Michael Winter and Rich Saitz; Carly Bridden and Natalia Gnatienko; URBAN ARCH group