MIAMI (Feb. 20, 2008) — Robert Malow, director of the AIDS Prevention Program at Florida International University’s Robert Stempel School of Public Health, was recently awarded a five-year $3.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health for HIV/AIDS research.
Malow was one of five recipients of grants from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, part of the National Institutes of Health, to study HIV/AIDS prevention for alcohol users at risk for the disease.
Currently, powerful drug cocktails allow people who are HIV-positive to lead longer and healthier lives. A history of alcohol abuse, however, can compromise their cognitive brain function, along with their ability to follow drug regimens and prevention programs.
“HIV prevention has been teaching people to practice safe sex, but if their brain is compromised from doing drugs or having HIV they can’t retain the information,” said Malow, a clinical psychologist who has led eight National Institutes of Health-funded projects totaling more than $25 million in the area of HIV and substance abuse. “HIV behavioral prevention research has avoided looking at biological tendencies that predispose people to engage in risky behavior. It affects issues of memory, attention span and brain function.”
The study will involve 320 HIV-positive Hispanic and African-Americans with a history of alcohol abuse. The goal is to determine whether specific treatments can be administered to offset the cognitive difficulties, stabilize the individual’s mental health and decrease HIV risk behavior.
A multidisciplinary team of researchers from FIU will be working on the study including Madhavan Nair, chair of FIU’s College of Medicine Department of Immunology, Jessy Devieux, Associate Professor in the Department of Health Promotion & Disease Prevention of the Stempel School of Public Health, and Rhonda Rosenberg, research assistant professor in the AIDS Prevention Program. Scientists from the University of New Mexico, the University of Miami and Yale University will also be contributing to this study.
—FIU—
Media Contact:
Yusila Ramirez, 305-348-2716 or yramirez@fiu.edu
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