WRI Member Bios Continued - Page 2

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Rowena Johnston is Vice President and Director of Research at amfAR, responsible for overseeing the Foundation’s pioneering research program. Dr. Johnston has overseen the reorganization of amfAR’s research program in order to target work directed at improving HIV prevention and treatment interventions, support the career development of young HIV/AIDS researchers, and aggressively pursue a cure for HIV. Dr. Johnston serves on a number of HIV-related advisory committees and as an ad hoc reviewer for numerous journals and conferences. She has published several scientific papers, and has been an invited speaker at numerous educational institutions around the country as well as at international conferences. She regularly speaks to the press about emerging research findings.

Dr. Johnston received her PhD in biopsychology in 1998 from the University of Michigan. She was a postdoctoral fellow in the department of neurology at Emory University and a visiting research fellow at the cellular neurology branch of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Alan Landay is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Immunology/Microbiology at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. He has been involved in HIV research for over 25 years, having performed some of the first immune evaluations of HIV-infected hemophiliacs in 1982 while completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. Dr. Landay joined the faculty at Rush University Medical Center in 1983 and helped establish the HIV research program, which has grown to encompass both a basic and clinical focus on immune studies in HIV. Dr. Landay’s current research focus is on immune pathogenesis and immune based therapy of HIV disease.

Dr. Landay is Chair of the NIH Office of AIDS Research Panel on Pathogenesis and PI of the Chicago Developmental Center for AIDS Research. He is also Chair of the Women’s Interagency HIV Studies Science Committee. He serves on NIH, amfAR, Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation and State of California Grant grant review panels and Chairs the NIH HIV Vaccine Study Section. Dr. Landay served as Chair of the National Committee of Clinical Laboratory Standards Committee on Flow Cytometry, which produced the first national standard on CD4 testing. He also served as an advisor to the College of American Pathologists, NIH and WHO on Standardization of CD4 Testing and serves on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Global Health Care Technologies Committee. Dr. Landay is past Chair of the Immunology Research Agenda Committee of the AIDS Clinical Trial Group NIH Program and has served on the Executive Committee of the Forum for HIV Collaborative Research. Dr. Landay has published more than 280 peer-reviewed papers on basic and clinical studies of HIV.

Sharon Lee is the Director of Family Health Care in Kansas City, Kansas. She earned her medical degree from the University of Kansas in 1982. After completing her residency in Family Medicine at the University of Missouri, Truman Medical Center, Dr. Lee founded Family Health Care and other initiatives in Kansas City to serve the poor. In addition to providing general family medicine care to the community, her practice has specialized in HIV medicine, providing care to over 500 individuals with the disease. In 1993, Dr. Lee returned to the University of Kansas and is now an Associate Clinical Professor there. Dr. Lee speaks nationally and internationally on topics including women's health, substance abuse, HIV disease, heart disease and medical care for the poor. She has received several awards for her clinical and humanitarian work.

Caroline Mitchell is an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Washington in Seattle, where her research focuses on identifying protective mechanisms in the healthy vagina that may decrease the risk of acquiring sexually transmitted infections like HIV. She is currently funded through the NIH for a project entitled “Female genital immune response to the vaginal microbiota.”

Dr. Mitchell received her MD from Harvard Medical School and her MPH from the University of Washington. She was a Women’s Studies major in college, and spent two years in the Peace Corps in Southern Africa prior to medical school, both of which fostered her commitment to improving women’s sexual and reproductive health.

Tonia Poteat has been involved in the fight against AIDS since 1989 when she began volunteering at an AIDS service organization while in college. She is a certified HIV Specialist by the American Academy of HIV Medicine. She has devoted her clinical practice to providing compassionate, knowledgeable medical care to people with HIV since 1996. She serves as a consultant clinical trainer for the Southeast AIDS Training and Education Center as well as the Region III STD/HIV Prevention Training Center. She currently cares for patients at Chase Brexton Health Services in Baltimore while completing her PhD at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

Ms. Poteat graduated from Yale University with a Bachelor’s degree in Biology in 1991. She received a Master of Medical Science degree from Emory University’s Physician Assistant Program in 1995 and a Master of Public Health from Rollins School of Public Health at Emory in 2005.

Monica Ruiz is Director of the HIV Prevention Research Program at the Forum for Collaborative HIV Research, and Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Prevention and Community Health at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services. Dr. Ruiz has served as the sole behavioral scientist and Acting Chief of the Prevention Sciences Branch, Division of AIDS, at the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, where she worked with the HIV Prevention Trials Network. She has also worked in the public policy arena, both as a study director with the Institute of Medicine and as the Acting Director for Public Policy at amfAR.

Dr. Ruiz received her doctorate in Preventive Medicine from the University of Southern California School of Medicine and her Masters degree in Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley. Her current work focuses on behavioral and social factors associated with the testing and eventual utilization of non-vaccine biomedical HIV prevention strategies, as well as HIV prevention efforts in underserved and disenfranchised populations.

Linda H. Scruggs is Director of Programs for AIDS Alliance for Children, Youth & Families in Washington, DC. AIDS Alliance is a national non-profit membership organization – a network of more than 200 members and 560 affiliate organizations providing HIV prevention and care to women, children, youth and families living with and at high-risk for HIV and AIDS. She has worked in the HIV/ AIDS community for over 15 years. Her work began as a health advocate for women at Johns Hopkins University.

Ms. Scruggs has served on numerous committees and boards, including National Black Women’s HIV/AIDS Network, National Positive Women Network, MHHSC (SAMSHA) National Consumer Advisory Network, WIN National Steering Committee, Baltimore, Ryan White Planning Council, Marco International Advisory Council, Tibotec Therapeutics Grace; Community Advisory Board, and the Quality of Life Board, African American United Methodist Church. She has founded numerous HIV support groups in the Baltimore/Washington, DC area. She is the co-author of Making Connections—Building Family Support Networks for Families Living With HIV, Getting Started: A Consumer Advisory Board Manual and Getting it Right: an Assessment Tool for Consumer Advisory Boards, as well as a number of number of articles and reviews related to HIV and AIDS treatment and care.

Kathleen Squires is professor of medicine and director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Thomas Jefferson University. Prior to joining Thomas Jefferson University Dr. Squires was an associate professor at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. She was also the associate chief for HIV affairs, Division of Infectious Diseases at the Keck School of Medicine and the medical director of the HIV Clinic of the LAC/USC Medical Center. Dr. Squires is board certified in Internal Medicine and the subspecialty of Infectious Diseases. She served as the Principal Investigator for the Quintiles HIV Clinical Trials Unit, the Chair of the NIH AIDS Clinical Trials and Epidemiology Study Section and is the Vice Chair of the HIV Medicine Association. She has published studies in peer-reviewed journals, including AIDS, Annals of Internal Medicine and JAIDS. Dr. Squires is an active clinician and investigator focusing on antiretroviral clinical trials and HIV infection in women.

Dr. Squires received her Bachelor’s of Arts at Princeton University and her Medical Degree at the Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1981. She completed her internship in Obstetrics and Gynecology and her residency in Internal Medicine at the Hospital of Medical College of Pennsylvania. She was also a fellow at Cornell University Medical College/The New York Hospital in the Division of Infectious Diseases. She has been the recipient of many awards including the Female Physician of the Year Award from the CARES Group, LAC + USC Medical Center, in 2004.

Stephen Storfer received his MD at the Medical University of South Carolina. Having witnessed the isolation and painful deaths of early AIDS patients, Dr. Storfer undertook a fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis specializing in infectious disease. He later became the Chief of Infectious Diseases at Incarnate Word Hospital in St. Louis while maintaining an academic appointment at Washington University as an Instructor in Medicine. In 2001 Dr. Storfer accepted a position with Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals working on the clinical development of their HIV medications, where is currently Senior Associate Director of Virology.

Dr. Storfer is a member of the HAART Oversight Committee, an EMEA mandated, industry-led collaborative group that sponsors the D:A:D study, among others. He was elected co-chairman of that committee in 2007. His other professional interests include access to appropriate medical care, especially for HIV-infected women and the metabolic consequences of HIV disease and its therapies.

Kimberly Struble is a Medical Team Leader in the Division of Antiviral Products at the Food and Drug Administration. She has served in positions with Drug Information and the Division of Antiviral Products as a project manager and clinical reviewer since 1993. She received her Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. In 2002 she joined Tibotec as Director of U.S. Regulatory Affairs and Director of Global Research and Development. She rejoined FDA in May 2003.

She currently leads a team responsible for the development of new products for the treatment and prevention of HIV infection, hepatitis B and C, herpes infections, influenza and other emerging viral infections. She is a member of the Department of Health and Human Services HIV Treatment Guidelines Panel, serves on committees including the Forum for Collaborative HIV Research and is FDA’s representative to CDC for Occupational and Nonoccupational Post-exposure Prophylaxis Public Health Service working group. She serves as the primary clinical representative to several women and HIV-initiated research projects at FDA.

Chuck Wira is an internationally recognized scientist with specific expertise in endocrinology and mucosal immunology as it relates to the immune system at mucosal surfaces of the female reproductive tract. Dr. Wira’s research focuses on how female sex hormones influence innate and adaptive immunity in the female reproductive tract of animal models and humans. He has been Principal Investigator of an NIH-funded Program Project grant for 14 years, having published approximately 175 research papers in this area. Dr. Wira is actively involved in a Dartmouth Medical School Fogarty Grant that is working with colleagues at Dartmouth and the University of Muhimbili, Tanzania to bring scientists to Dartmouth for training in HIV-related mucosal immunology. He also sits on the board of directors of an NGO at the University of Nairobi, Kenya that focuses on improving women’s health against a spectrum of diseases including AIDS. Dr. Wira’s laboratory includes graduate students and research associates from the United States, China, India, Tanzania, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Australia.

Dr. Wira is an active member of the Society for Mucosal Immunology, American Society for Reproductive Immunology (ASRI), American Society for Microbiology and the International Society for Immunology of Reproduction (ISIR). Dr. Wira was the Secretary General of ISIR and is the President of ASRI (2008-2010). He has received numerous awards including an NIH Merit Award and the ASRI Distinguished Investigator Award in Reproductive Immunology. Dr. Wira is an Advisor to NIH. Examples include: NIH Women, Girls and HIV AIDS Group, NIH Planning Group for HIV-related research; Women and Girls Planning Group; and the OAR Microbicides Planning Group. He is currently working with NIH to organize a meeting sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) on prevention of HIV transmission and mucosal immunity in the male and female reproductive tract in Hanover, NH (June 30 to July 2, 2010).

Dr. Carmen D. Zorrilla graduated from the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine in 1978. She has been a faculty member of the OB-GYN Department there since then and a Professor since 1998. She is certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the American Academy of HIV Medicine. In 1987, she established the first longitudinal clinic for Women Living with HIV in Puerto Rico. She participated in the PACTG 076 as one of the first 10 pilot sites and was instrumental in making AZT available to pregnant women living with HIV in Puerto Rico. Her clinic, in which more than 400 infants have been born to HIV-positive women, has had a nearly zero transmission rate during the past 10 years.

Dr. Zorrilla has participated in diverse clinical and behavioral research projects for women living with HIV and has many publications. She has been a consultant for national and international organizations including the National Institutes of Health, the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, the Centers for Disease Control, the Institute for Health Care Improvement. She was a member of the Office of Women’s Health Advisory Committee and the CDC/HRSA AIDS and STD Advisory Committee.

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