2022 Symposium on the Avant-Garde Award Program for HIV/AIDS and Substance Use Disorder Research

The NIDA HIV Research Program hosted a symposium in May 2022 with awardees of the NIDA Avant-Garde Award Program for HIV/AIDS and Substance Use Disorder Research (DP1), featuring innovative research into new areas of HIV prevention and treatment among people who use drugs.

The symposium featured remarks from NIDA Director Dr. Nora Volkow, HRP Director Dr. Redonna Chandler, and HRP Associate Director Dr. Vasundhara Varthakavi, followed by presentations by past Avant-Garde Award recipients:

• Dolores Albarracín, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania – Annenberg School for Communication
  Digital Mobilization of Communities to Curb HIV and HCV in Appalachia and the Midwest: Theoretical, Empirical, and Methological Issues
• Tariq Rana, Ph.D., University of California, San Diego – Institute for Genomic Medicine
  Epigenetic and Epitranscriptomic Regulation of HIV Infection
• Jeremy Luban, M.D., University of Massachusetts Medical School
  Innate Immunity to HIV-1
• Eric Verdin, M.D., Buck Institute for Research on Aging
  A Novel Reporter HIV Genome to Study Latency

You can also review the first 2021 Avant-Garde Symposium, providing an insightful look at other groundbreaking research at the intersection of the prevention, treatment, and eradication of HIV and substance use.

HRP also funds the complementary NIDA Avenir Award Program for Research on Substance Use Disorders and HIV/AIDS (DP2), designed to stimulate innovation and potentially transformative research from early stage investigators, and hosted the HIV/AIDS Avenir Award Symposium on January 27, 2021 to highlight recent award recipients and their research.

Contact the HRP Support Team for more information and updates on the HIV Avenir and Avant-Garde Awards.