Transmission Behavior in Partnerships of Newly HIV Infected Southern Californians: MetroMates Study
This study will measure how transmission risks and partnership dynamics change over time among recently HIV-infected individuals and their partners comparing their behavioral patterns with those with chronic HIV infection and no HIV infection.  It will allow for partnership level analyses by actively recruiting sexual partners. Of special focus will be the role of drug use, especially methamphetamine, in affecting behaviors over time, and how partnership dynamics interact with drug use to allow for HIV transmission. http://metromates.bol.ucla.edu

PI: Pamina Gorbach: pgorbach@ucla.edu ; Co-Investigator: Marjan Javanbakht: javan@ucla.edu Project Manager: Leonardo Colemon: leocolemon@ucla.edu or Edward Robbie: edrobbie@ucla.edu

Rectal Health, Behaviors and Microbicide Acceptability.
UCLA Microbicide Development Program (NIAID U19): Project 3: http://mdp.ctrl.ucla.edu/
Project Manager: Edward Robbie: edrobbie@ucla.edu

This study guides development of rectal microbicides by providing data on anal sex, anal health, and the acceptability of carrier methods for rectal microbicides. We will test hypotheses associating sexual behaviors (receptive anal intercourse) and anal health among 896 men and women including HIV positive and negative subjects in Los Angeles and Baltimore.

This project in collaboration with community partners Friends Research Institute and AIDS Project Los Angeles, is conducting a cohort study of 450 men who have sex with men that will develop educational materials for men about rectal microbicides, assess the best format in which to deliver such information, identify barriers to microbicide trial participation by analyzing factors that facilitate enrollment in a microbicide trials registry, and measure STI and HIV incidence.

Other Projects

HIV/AIDS Risk Behaviors in Methamphetamine User Networks. Project FLOW: Los Angeles site of the Sexual Acquisition and Transmission of HIV Cooperative Agreement Program. (NIDA).
Co-principal investigator with Dr. Steve Shoptaw in a study of drug using men who have sex with men (MSM), drug using MSM/W, and non drug using MSM and their male and female sexual partners to examine the diffusion of HIV and STDs in drug users in LA to identify the individual-level, partnership-level, and environmental factors that promote the spread of these diseases.

Microbicide Trials Network. Division of AIDS, NIMH, NIH. http://www.mtnstopshiv.org/

Member of the Behavioral Research Committee
The Microbicide Trials Network (MTN), part of the Magee-Womens Research Institute and Foundation <http://www.mwrif.org/> with affiliations to Magee-Womens Hospital <http://magee.upmc.com> of UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh <http://www.pitt.edu> , will be a worldwide collaborative clinical trials network that evaluates the safety and efficacy of microbicides designed to prevent HIV transmission. The mission of the MTN is to reduce the sexual transmission of HIV through the evaluation of microbicide products. The MTN will conduct scientifically rigorous and ethically sound clinical trials that will support licensure of topical microbicide products. The MTN plans to develop and/or execute 15 separate clinical trials of microbicides between 2006 and 2013. Established by the Division of AIDS <http://www.niaid.nih.gov/daids/> of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in partnership with other collaborating institutes at the National Institute of Health (NIH), the MTN carries out its mission through a strong network of expert scientists and investigators from domestic and international sites.