Collaborators

The scientists involved in ITREMA consist of a group of internationally renowned experts from the consortium in the area of HIV-1 drug resistance, infectious diseases in RLS, social sciences and infectious disease modeling with addition of a highly experienced HIV pharmacology expert of Radboud University. The scientists and clinicians involved have published more than 500 relevant papers on HIV drug resistance, HIV pharmacology, HIV transmission and HIV care in resource limited settings. The experts are represented in several South African and international guidelines groups and have been involved in numerous clinical trials and international research collaborations.

Annemarie Wensing

MD, PhD

About Annemarie

Annemarie Wensing is senior consultant of Clinical Virology at the department of Medical Microbiology at the University Medical Center Utrecht and a honorary professor at the WITS RHI within the School of Clinical Medicine of the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. As clinical virology consultant she advises infectious disease specialists in multiple HIV-centers in their choice of antiretroviral regimens. She is the co-prinicpal investigator of the Translational Virology Research group focusing on Antiviral resistance and HIV Reservoirs. She is a founding member of the European Society of Antiviral Resistance and has been technical coordinator of the successful European Commission supported EuropeHIVResistance and SPREAD Programs, focusing on transmission of HIV-drug resistance. She is a leading member of the ESAR European Guidelines panel, a regular consult for the WHO HIV Drug Resistance ResNet, regional representative of the European AIDS Clinical Society and chair of the IAS-USA mutations panel. She is (co-)Principal Investigator of several trials and projects such as the Itrema trial and the IciStem Project on HIV Cure.

Monique Nijhuis

PhD

About Monique

Monique Nijhuis studied Biology and obtained her PhD in 1999 on the investigation of the impact of antiretroviral therapy on HIV fitness. Following postdoctoral research training she became an Associate Professor of Virology at the University Medical Center Utrecht in The Netherlands and is Honorary Professor in the HIV Pathogenesis Research Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand. Her research interest is at the interface between fundamental and clinical virology and is centered on (1) Mechanisms of antiviral resistance and viral evolution and (2) Viral-reservoirs and cure. She is a member of the IAS HIV Cure International Scientific Working Group and the scientific advisory board of the Dutch Aids Fonds and associated editor of Retrovirology. She was granted by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) with the VIDI and ASPASIA award. She has served on many national and international grant review and PhD review committees. She has published over 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals and has guided many students, PhD students and Postdoctoral Fellows.

Francois Venter

MD, FCP

About Francois

Professor Venter is the Deputy Executive Director of the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He leads multiple antiretroviral treatment optimisation studies, and has an active interest in public sector access to HIV services. He is currently working on new first and second line antiretroviral options, patient linkage to care interventions, and HIV self-testing projects. He has led large PEPFAR-funded HIV programmes in South Africa, including one that focuses on truckers and sex workers. He has been represented on South African and regional HIV guidelines for over a decade, having done almost all his training within South Africa. He is an advisor to the South African government, ACTG, Southern African HIV Clinicians Society, UNAIDS and WHO. He has been involved in several human rights cases involving HIV within the Southern African region, and has an active interest in medical ethics.His major research currently focus on combinations of newer drugs to improve the resistance and potency while lowering the cost of first and second line antiretrovirals, improve early diagnosis of HIV, facilitate access to pre-exposure prophylaxis, as well as using patient information to drive improved linkage to care after diagnosis. He supervises multiple local and international Masters and PhD students, and has been an examiner for the regional Diploma in HIV Medicine and Diploma in Sexual Health and HIV for the Southern African Colleges of Medicine.

David Burger

PhD

About David

David Burger is Professor of Clinical Pharmacy at the Radboud University Nijmegen. He has been responsible for coordination of various clinical trials. He is member of the Editorial Board of the www.hiv-druginteractions.org and www.hep-druginteractions.org websites on behalf of the European AIDS Clinical Society. He is a member of the Organizing Committee of the annual International Workshop on Clinical Pharmacology of HIV Therapy. The topics of his research group are drug-drug interactions, pediatric pharmacology, therapeutic drug monitoring, and operational research in resource-limited countries.

Rob ter Heine

PhD

About Rob

Rob ter Heine is a hospital-pharmacist and clinical pharmacologist. In 2009, Rob obtained his PhD in clinical pharmacology of antiretroviral treatment at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. In the subsequent years he obtained his hospital pharmacist and clinical pharmacologist certification and he worked at the Meander Medical Center in Amersfoort, The Netherlands. As of 2015 he is working at the Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen (The Netherlands) as a hospital pharmacist, trial pharmacist, member of the medical ethical committee and head of the Radboud Applied Pharmacometrics research group. His current research is focused on the clinical application of pharmacometrics to individual treatment with anti-infective and anti-cancer drugs.

John de Wit

MSc, PhD

About John

John de Wit (MSc, PhD) is professor of Interdisciplinary Social Science: Public Health at Utrecht University. John is a social psychologist by training who has worked across the social sciences and public health and health promotion for over 30 years. Much of John’s work is related to the global HIV response and key populations. John’s research interests encompass HIV prevention as well as the health wellbeing of people living with HIV. In the context of the Ndlovu Research Consortium he undertakes research regarding the success of antiretroviral treatment of HIV, including treatment adherence and retention in care.

Rob Schuurman

PhD

About Rob

Rob Schuurman is a senior staff member at the department of Virology. From 1992 onwards his research focussed on HIV Drug Resistance and clinical application of molecular methods for HIV-1 treatment monitoring including drug resistance testing. He has conducted various international research collaborations, either as a participant or as a coordinator. In recent years his research focussed on the development and affordable drug resistance applications in resource limited settings. He is a registered Medical Molecular Microbiologist and member of the WHO HIV ResNet Laboratory Working group and Scientific Counsil Member of Quality Control for Molecular Diagnostics.

Hugo Tempelman

MD, MA

About Hugo

Hugo Tempelman is working in South Africa since he graduated as a medical doctor. He studied in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, graduated in 1990 and immigrated to SA to work in the townships of Limpopo. He initiated the Ndlovu Care Group, a NGO active in the fields of Health Care, Child Care Community Development and Research. Since 2006 involved he is involved in a research collaboration with Utrecht University, especially the UMCU and the University of Witswatersrand. He was a Visiting Professor from 2007 until 2012 and achieved his Masters in Change Management in the same year. From the early days of HIV denial in South Africa he is involved in HIV community awareness, treatment and care and Ndlovu Care Group initiated over 40.000 HIV patients on ARV treatment and support. The research collaboration delivered a numerous amount of peer reviewed publications in renowned journals.

Lucas Hermans

MD

About Lucas

Lucas is a medical doctor with an interest in internal medicine and infectious diseases and is working in South Africa as a researcher and PhD student, supervised by Annemarie Wensing and Monique Nijhuis at the University Medical Center Utrecht (Utrecht, The Netherlands). The main topic of his PhD project is monitoring of antiretroviral treatment in resource-limited settings, and consists of several translational and clinical research projects. Lucas is the on-site coordinator at Ndlovu Care Group for the ITREMA randomized controlled trial, and is also a visiting researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand Reproductive Health and HIV Institute (Wits RHI, Johannesburg, South Africa). He is the first author of several peer-reviewed publications and has presented his work at several international HIV conferences.

Mirjam Kretzschmar

PhD

About Mirjam

A main focus of my research has been on transmission dynamics and intervention impact in sexually transmitted infections and HIV. More broadly my research involved the impact of sexual network structure on the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV. I have used individual based modeling approaches for describing dynamic network structure and its effects on transmission of HIV, chlamydia, and gonorrhea. I have also developed modeling approaches to study the impact of concurrent partnerships on HIV transmission dynamics. I contributed to the development of deterministic pair formation models that are used for modeling HIV and chlamydia infections and studied the impact of partnership duration on HIV transmission in deterministic models. The other main focus of my research has been on studying contact patterns and their relationship with transmission of infection. This could be sexual contacts as stated above, but also close contacts such as conversational contacts that are related to transmission of respiratory infections. In a recent project, we pioneered the use of respondent driven sampling methods for collecting contact network information. Finally, I have developed methodology for estimating disease burden for infectious diseases using disability adjusted life years and taking into account long term sequelae of acute infections. My aim has always been to gain understanding of the dynamics of infectious disease transmission in order to improve response and control strategies. My work is strongly interdisciplinary and bridges mathematics, epidemiology and public health.

Sigrid Vervoort

PhD

About Sigrid

A main focus of my research has been on transmission dynamics and intervention impact in sexually transmitted infections and HIV. More broadly my research involved the impact of sexual network structure on the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV. I have used individual based modeling approaches for describing dynamic network structure and its effects on transmission of HIV, chlamydia, and gonorrhea. I have also developed modeling approaches to study the impact of concurrent partnerships on HIV transmission dynamics. I contributed to the development of deterministic pair formation models that are used for modeling HIV and chlamydia infections and studied the impact of partnership duration on HIV transmission in deterministic models. The other main focus of my research has been on studying contact patterns and their relationship with transmission of infection. This could be sexual contacts as stated above, but also close contacts such as conversational contacts that are related to transmission of respiratory infections. In a recent project, we pioneered the use of respondent driven sampling methods for collecting contact network information. Finally, I have developed methodology for estimating disease burden for infectious diseases using disability adjusted life years and taking into account long term sequelae of acute infections. My aim has always been to gain understanding of the dynamics of infectious disease transmission in order to improve response and control strategies. My work is strongly interdisciplinary and bridges mathematics, epidemiology and public health.

About ITREMA

The ITREMA project is funded bij ZonMw and supported by the African HIV Care & Cure (AHC²) Foundation and the Aidsfonds. ITREMA is a collaboration between investigators from the University Medical Center Utrecht (UMCU), Utrecht University, Radboud University Medical Center Nijmegen, the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, South Africa) and Ndlovu Care Group (NCG, Limpopo, South Africa).

Get in contact with us

ITREMA
Heidelberglaan 100
3584 CX Utrecht, The Netherlands

Location
University Medical Centre Utrecht, Department of Medical Microbiology

 

+31 88 75 565 26

f.bikhezar@umcutrecht.nl