Core and Cohort Updates

Admin Core

We are excited to introduce and welcome Trevor Baker, our new Project Coordinator, to the Admin Core. He recently completed a graduate program at the University of Notre Dame, where he received a Master of Science in Global Health degree. Trevor joined the Admin Core in November, and he is excited to be a part of the URBAN ARCH team!

Over the past several months, the Admin Core has continued to maintain the URBAN ARCH sample repository. Since the last update, we received a shipment of 41 cryoboxes with over 1,000 ADEPTT and BREATH samples from Uganda. Jules Canfield and Christine Capozzi spent a few days spot checking and inventorying the samples into the repository.

Additionally, Jules pulled a few Russia IMPACT study samples from the repository, for viability testing performed by Dr. Andrew Henderson’s lab. The results from this testing will assist the Russia ARCH cohort’s HIV Latency study. Specifically, the viability testing from the IMPACT samples will inform the study team in the development of further laboratory experiments to explore the immunological footprint of the study population.

Lastly, the Admin Core is preparing for the 2019 Annual Meeting, which will take place April 9-10, 2019 in Boston. Click here for a preliminary agenda, and be on the lookout for an email with a detailed agenda coming soon!

BDM Core

In the past 3 months, the BDM Core has been active in data management and biostatistics activities across URBAN ARCH. We helped prepare for the fall DSMB meeting as well as numerous abstract submissions and manuscripts.

We have also started working closely with biostatistics doctoral student Wenqing Jiang on a Russia ARCH study led by Karsten Lunze evaluating the relationship between HIV and substance use stigma and utilization of health care services.

Uganda Cohort

We continue in the second quarter of the ADEPTT study year 3 with the same excitement that we started with! As of December 1, 2018, we have enrolled 157 participants into the ADEPTT study, including 54 alcohol abstainers and 103 current alcohol drinkers. We have screened 809 participants with 638 eligible for further screening for latent TB, and 161 positive and eligible for the study. We’ve completed baseline procedures for 155 participants, 153 two-week follow up study visits, 145 month-1 visits, 135 month-2 visits, 130 month-3 visits, 112 month-4 visits, 103 month-5 visits, 103 month-6 visits, 79 month-7 visits, 52 month-12 visits, and 5 month-18 visits. Ten participants have discontinued TB preventive therapy (INH) due to grade 3/4 level toxicities and two women have discontinued INH due to being pregnant.

*Christine Ngabirano presenting ADEPTT data*

*Christine Ngabirano receiving a certificate of recognition*

ADEPTT study data were recently presented by the study coordinator, Christine Ngabirano, at the Annual MUST Research Dissemination Conference, November 22-23, 2018, in Mbarara, Uganda. The abstract titled ‘Alcohol Consumption among HIV-infected Patients on Antiretroviral Therapy enrolling into a TB prevention Study in Mbarara, Uganda’, looked at alcohol consumption in the first 6 months of study enrollment. We found that a high proportion (51%) of self-reported drinkers were heavy drinkers based on PEth at baseline. Although alcohol intake appeared to decrease across follow-up, a big proportion maintained heavy drinking behavior while on IPT which may increase their risk of INH toxicity.

Russia Cohort

As of December 1^st, St PETER has enrolled 238 participants and an additional 19 participants have continued on in the Russia ARCH cohort without enrolling into St PETER. A total of 68 participants have completed the study. As of December 1^st, PETER PAIN has completed enrollment at 11 participants.

We recently completed all study visits for the PETER PAIN study (UH2AA026193), and are currently discussing the transition to the UH3 component of the study.

The team is preparing to begin enrollment within the next few months for the R61DA047032 HIV Latency study (“Effect of opioid use disorder on HIV latent reservoirs and immune dysfunction assessed by single-cell transcriptomics”). This study will enroll participants from our ongoing Russia studies (St PETER, ARCH, LINC-II) and collect their samples to understand how opioid use affects the immune response in people living with HIV. The results will provide insights into the influence of opioid use on hidden reservoirs of HIV, which are barriers to curing HIV, as they promote the evasion of the antiviral immune response. The study team is eager to begin enrollment, processing, and analysis of the initial samples, as the findings will contribute to potential strategies for treating HIV in this population.

The Russia ARCH cohort welcomed a research assistant, Sarah Rossi, to the team. Sarah recently received her B.S. in Biology from Tufts University and joined our team in September 2018. We are excited for Sarah to join the URBAN ARCH team!

The team is also actively pursuing data analyses, abstract submissions, and manuscript preparation.

Published Manuscripts:

Gnatienko N, Wagman JA, Cheng DM, Raj A, Blokhina E, Toussova O, Forman LS, Lioznov D, Bridden C, Sullivan M, Bryant K, Samet JH, Tsui JI. Serodiscordant partnerships and opportunities for pre-exposure prophylaxis among partners of women and men living with HIV in St. Petersburg, Russia. PLoS One. 2018;13(11):e0207402. PMCID: PMC6239322

Presented Abstracts:

Zinc deficiency and advanced liver fibrosis among HIV/HCV co-infected persons in Russia (Josh Barocas, et al.)
- Poster presentation at IDWeek Conference, October 2018.

Boston Cohort

As of December 5^th, Boston ARCH 4F has completed 133 baseline visits (124 with participants from the original Boston ARCH Bone Cohort and 9 with participants new to the cohort) and 39 6-Month follow-up phone interviews.

This past month the team has begun efforts to recruit new participants from the Center for Infectious Diseases at Boston Medical Center.

The Boston ARCH team welcomed a new Project Coordinator, Stephanie Loomer. Stephanie received her Master of Science in Medical Anthropology & Cross-Cultural Practice from Boston University School of Medicine, and is returning to the Boston University Medical Campus after working as research assistant at the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute. Stephanie will contribute to both recruitment/interviewing efforts and administrative oversight of the study.

We are continuing to plan new data analyses, and have submitted abstracts to be considered for presentation at the upcoming College on Problems of Drug Dependence and Research Society on Alcoholism annual meetings in Summer 2019.