PostCROI 2025. Una actualización de la «32nd Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections»

Dr. Clotet received his MD (1976) and his PhD (1981), with a thesis on autoimmune diseases, from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). That same year, his internship as an Internal Medicine specialist at the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona coincided with the first AIDS case reported in Spain. This case was the catalyst for a career dedicated to this serious disease, first as head of the HIV Unit of the Germans Trias i Pujol University Hospital in Badalona (1987-2015) and then as founder and president of the Fight against AIDS Foundation (1992), which is now named as Fight Infections Foundation.

Dr. Clotet soon saw the need to go a step beyond patient care to conduct research aimed at eradicating AIDS. In 1995, with the support of “la Caixa” and the Department of Health of the Generalitat of Catalonia, he founded the IrsiCaixa AIDS Research Institute, which he still heads.  In addition, Dr. Clotet is also the clinical director of Infectious Diseases at the Metropolitana Nord area of the Catalan Institute of Health, scientific advisor to two IrsiCaixa spin-offs: Aelix Therapeutics SL and AlbaJuna Therapeutics SL and director of the Chair of AIDS and Related Diseases at the Universitat de Vic (UVic).

He has published more than 1000 papers in high impact international journals and his contributions to research have been recognized with the Josep Trueta medal to Sanitary Merit and the ‘Premi Nacional de Recerca’, among other awards.

After finishing his medical residency in internal medicine at the Hospital Universitari de Bellvitge, he started visiting HIV-infected patients in the early years of the epidemic, in the mid 80s. Therefore, he lived the different stages of the history of AIDS when it was a fatal disease and patients died every day until today that HIV has become a chronic disease with prolonged survival and excellent quality of life of patients receiving antiretroviral therapy. He is currently the head of the HIV and STI Unit within the Infectious Diseases Service at the Hospital Universitari de Bellvitge, with his professional performance he has been able to contribute to clinical research, participating and organizing clinical trials related to opportunistic infections, HIV complications and antiretroviral therapy. He is co-author of more than 250 scientific articles published in national and international journals such as New Engl J Med, Lancet, Ann Intern Med, Infect Dis Clin, J Infect Dis i JAIDS among others. He has also participated in expert panels for guidelines for the management of opportunistic infections (NIH/CDC/IDSA) and antiretroviral therapy, opportunistic infections and neurocognitive disorders (GESIDA). He is also a reviewer for several international journals.

Adrià Curran is a staff physician of the Infectious Diseases Department and the coordinator of the Anal Dysplasia Screening Unit of Vall d’Hebron University Hospital. He has carried out specific training on HPV anal dysplasia in HIV patients at the University of San Francisco (CA, USA) with Prof. Joel Palefsky. He is a member of the International Anal Neoplasia Society. He participates as a researcher in multiple international clinical trials and has published more than 100 articles in national and international journals and book chapters on various aspects of HIV infection, HPV and its treatment.

Born in Lleida in 1977, Beatriz Mothe, MD, PhD, completed under a national competitive post-specialization programme for physicians (ISCIII Rio Hortega CM08/00020 2009-2011) was on the subject of immunological, virological and genetic HIV-control mechanisms that could be incorporated into the rational design of novel therapeutic vaccine candidates (Catalan Award for Best Thesis on Infectious Diseases in 2012). She has actively participated in pre-clinical testing of a novel HIV T-cell immunogen called HTI, designed to redirect cytotoxic T-cell responses to protective and conserved HIV targets capable of controlling viral replication. Following US research stays at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard (formerly Partners AIDS Research Center) and the National Cancer Institute at Frederick, after taking up a research fellowship position (ISCIII Joan Rodés JR13/00024 2014-2016), she is currently an associated researcher at the Host Genetics and Cellular Immunology group led by Dr. Brander in IrsiCaixa. She also works in the HIV unit of the Germans Trias i Pujol University Hospital, where she co-directs with Dr José Moltó the research line of Vaccines, Immunotherapies and Pharmacology. As a clinical researcher, she focuses on identifying and monitoring acute/recent HIV infection and HIV controllers as models for a functional cure (principal investigator for the early-cART and controller cohorts). She also coordinates clinical trials and immune monitoring in aspects related to therapeutic vaccines and eradication strategies. Mothe has been a teacher of the MSc in Zoonoses and One Health (UAB) since 2016 and is currently co-directing with Dr Brander a doctoral thesis on the subject of advanced immunology for the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). She has been an associate professor in the Faculty of AIDS and Related Diseases at the University of Vic-University of Central Catalonia (UVic-UCC) since 2014.

Hospital General de Granollers, Barcelona.

Eugènia Negredo completed the specialty of Internal Medicine at the Sant Pau Hospital, Barcelona, in 1998. She received her Ph.D. in Medicine from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, in 2002. Since 1999, Dr. Negredo works as a physician in the HIV Unit of Germans Trias i Pujol Hospital in Barcelona, and she leads the research group focused on the epidemiology, pathogenesis and treatment of different HIV- and antiretroviral-related complications. She is also Associate Professor of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and Universitat de Vic.

ICREA Research Professor and Principal Investigator at Retrovirology and Clinical Studies research group, Irsicaixa AIDS Research Institute, Barcelona, Spain.

Josep M Llibre, MD, PhD, received his MD in the Universitat de Barcelona, and obtained his specialty in Internal Medicine and his PhD in the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He is a member of the panel of Antiretroviral treatment guidelines at the GeSIDA group (AIDS group of the SEIMC Spanish society), and an expert advisor of the Catalan Health Institute (ICS) on antiretroviral treatment and hepatitis C (PADEICS). He started caring for patients with HIV/AIDS at the beginning of the epidemic in Spain in 1987. His main areas of interest in HIV Medicine include the clinical implications of HIV-1 resistance, the analysis of safety and efficacy in HIV-1 antiretroviral treatment clinical trials (both in naïve and pre-treated patients), with a special interest in drug efficacy and pharmacoeconomics, and hepatitis C co-infection. He has published widely in journals and book chapters, as well as HIV/AIDS medical webs, on clinical aspects of HIV-1 treatment and care, HIV-1 resistance, clinical reviews, positioning papers, treatment intensification and simplification strategies, and participated in many pivotal clinical trials. He has also published in basic science research journals. He collaborates as an editor and/or peer-reviewing with many top international medical journals. He is involved in HIV Medical Educational training in Spain and other European, as well as Asian Countries.

Hospital Clínic de Barcelona.

Parc Salut Mar, Barcelona.

Long COVID-19 director. Member of the Infectious Diseases Unit. She is responsible for a monographic consultation on congenital immunodeficiencies and her research is part of the lines of the Infectious Diseases Unit. She is an associate professor of Medicine at the UAB and tutor for internships and seminars in Physiopathology and Clinical Semiology and Biological Basis of Pathology for the UAB Medicine Degree at the Can Ruti Campus.