FIU researchers sharing global stage at AIDS 2012

The XIX International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012) is underway in Washington, D.C. this week, gathering together more than 23,000 delegates from more than 195 countries to discuss the latest scientific research and recent advances toward ending the AIDS epidemic. This is the first time the world’s largest AIDS conference has been held in the United States since 1990.

Eric Fenkl, Sande Gracia Jones and Kitty Chadwell from the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, part of the contingent representing FIU at AIDS 2012.

Influential policy makers, including former President Bill Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé, Nobel Laureate Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, among others, are in attendance to review recent scientific developments, lessons learned and collectively chart a course forward.

AIDS 2012 also features more than 3,600 scientific abstracts ranging across a number of different HIV-related issues.

According to media representatives from AIDS 2012, there were 11,715 abstracts – a 15 percent increase over AIDS 2010 – submitted for this year’s program. After an intensive review process by 1,358 peer reviewers from 94 nations using a blind, peer-review process, only 3,600 abstracts, or 31 percent of all papers submitted were accepted for inclusion in the AIDS 2012 program. FIU researchers were cited or authored 11 of those.

Sheldon Fields from the College of Nursing and Health Sciences in Washington at AIDS 2012.

Topics addressed by FIU researchers ranged from HIV/AIDS issues in different countries, including Haiti and China, to local concerns, such as changing migrant workers’ risk behavior and tracking survival rates in racially segregated communities.

“Our acceptance is really quite an honor,” said Katherine Chadwell, clinical assistant professor in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, who is exhibiting a poster at the conference along with FIU colleagues Sande Gracia Jones, Eric Fenkl and Carol Patsdaughter.

“It offers my group the opportunity to not only showcase our work and the work of our students, but places CNHS and FIU on an international platform as well,” she said.

On July 26, Chadwell, Jones and Marianna Baum, professor, Robert Stempel College of Public Health and Social Work, met with Florida Representatives Alcee Hastings and Frederica Wilson to discuss FIU’s HIV/AIDS research and health initiatives. “They were willing to listen to our concerns and to hear about the things we’re trying to do to improve the health of our Miami community,” says Jones.

Click here to view all of the FIU research presented at AIDS 2012.