Division of Epidemiology and Prevention

Man Charurat, M.H.S., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, UMBI
mcharurat@ihv.umaryland.edu

Dr. Charurat is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Human Virology University of Maryland. His research specializes in methodological issues in HIV epidemiology with research focuses on HIV surveillance, acute HIV infection, pediatric issues in HIV, and HIV/AIDS in women.

For the past 9 years, he has been a co-investigator of the Women and Infants Transmission Study (WITS) that examined risk factors of mother-to-child HIV transmission (MTCT), identified predictors of infant mortality, and characterized long-term non-progressors among HIV-infected children. He is also a co-investigator in a project in Nigeria to evaluate the impact of breast-feeding on MTCT in a setting of intrapartum and neonatal single-dose nevirapine.

Furthermore, he is the co-Principal Investigator on a research project to identify early acute cases of HIV (REACH Study) in order to measure HIV incidence in Nigeria, to investigate early events in HIV natural history and to collect biologic reagents that can be employed for developing and refining assays to detect HIV incidence from cross-sectional samples.

Within the context of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief programs at the Institute, Dr. Charurat is the Monitoring and Evaluation Team Leader for the AIDS Care and Treatment in Nigeria (ACTION Project) and is leading the partnership between the IHV, the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to provide technical assistance to the Government of Nigeria on the implementation of the PMTCT monitoring system.

With expertise in health system bioinformatics coupled with scientific expertise in HIV epidemiology, he oversees the development of health management information system (i.e. patient monitoring and management system) and targeted HIV evaluation research for IHV’s activities in Nigeria.

Despite targeted and applied/operational research conducted internationally, significant gaps in research training still remain in developing countries including Nigeria. In partnership with the National Institutes of Health Fogarty AIDS International Training Research Program (AITRP), the IHV provides long- and short-term training to health care professionals and researchers from Nigeria and the Caribbean.

Within this capacity, Dr. Charurat is also an academic coordinator and a co-investigator for the Institute’s AITRP program by providing mentorship and guidance to short-term trainees and long-term degree seeking students at the University of Maryland.

In addition to international HIV research, Dr. Charurat is also the Subcontract Principal Investigator on a NIH grant utilizing the Women and Infants Transmission Study (WITS) cohort in the U.S. to delineate the influence of alcohol and hard drug use on HIV/AIDS disease and its management in women. The specific aims of this project are to examine the influence of alcohol consumption on clinical, virological, and immunological markers of HIV disease progression; and to determine the relationship between alcohol consumption and adherence to antiretroviral medications and consequently patient outcomes.

Prior to joining the IHV, he was a research associate at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he conducted research on identifying early biomarkers determinants of HIV disease progression.

•

Ph.D. - Johns Hopkins University

•

Poirier M, Divi R, Al-Harthi L, Olivero O, Nguyen V, Walker B, Landay A, Walker V, Charurat M, Blattner WA. Long-term mitochondrial toxicity in HIV-uninfected infants born to HIV-infected mothers. JAIDS 2003 (In press).