XIII Jornada d’Actualització sobre Malalties Infeccioses – UVic-UCC

Eugènia Negredo earned her medical degree and PhD from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), and completed her residency in Internal Medicine at Sant Pau Hospital.

Since 1999, she has led the HIV Section at Germans Trias i Pujol Hospital (HGTiP) and coordinates a research group focused on HIV-related complications and associated chronic inflammation, with a special emphasis on aging.

She contributes to national and international clinical guidelines on comorbidities and aging (GESIDA, PNS, EACS), and since 2014 has been a professor and coordinator of the Medical degree at UVIC-UCC.

Since 2016, she has co-directed the international workshop “Comprehensive Management of Aging and HIV”, held annually in Barcelona and Buenos Aires.

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.

Internist with extensive knowledge in the field of Infectious Diseases. She holds a degree in Medicine from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and obtained a specialty in Internal Medicine at the Consorci Hospitalari de Vic (CHV).

She worked at the Santa Caterina de Salt Hospital where she participated in the establishment of the first anal cancer detection unit -human papillomavirus- in the province of Girona.

Since 2018 he has been part of the Infections Group of the Internal Medicine service and is responsible for the CHV’s HIV consultation

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

Julià Blanco (PhD in Biochemistry, University of Barcelona (UB), 1994) leads the Cell Virology and Immunology (VIC) group at IrsiCaixa. He has extensively studied the role of the HIV envelope glycoprotein (Env) in virus-cell or cell-to-cell interactions and HIV cytopathicity in a translational environment. In vivo, he has explored the mechanisms involved in CD4 T-cell depletion, analysing the contribution of virological and immunological factors that modulate CD4 and B-cell survival. In parallel, his team has developed experimental models for the analysis of cell-to-cell HIV transmission and Env-induced cell death. Knowledge generated regarding the Env function has also proved useful in analysing anti-Env drug and anti-Env antibody mechanisms of action and in contributing to a better understanding of antibody protection from HIV acquisition and spread. Dr. Blanco recently co-founded AlbaJuna Therapeutics SL as an IrsiCaixa spin-off whose main activity is the development of synthetic antibodies against HIV.

Dr. Manuel Crespo holds a doctorate in Medicine from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). He obtained his specialty in Internal Medicine at the Xeral Hospital in Vigo in 1999. He worked as a specialist in the Infectious Diseases Service at the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital until April 2016.

He later moved to Vigo where he directed the Internal Medicine Service at the Álvaro Cunqueiro Hospital.

On his return to Catalonia, in 2021, he joined the Bellvitge University Hospital as an internist. Currently, since September 2022, he is head of the Internal Medicine Service of Althaia (Manresa).

Oriol Mitjà is a Spanish infectious disease physician and researcher known for his work on neglected tropical diseases and global health. Born in 1980 in Spain, he trained in medicine and specialized in infectious diseases, later earning a PhD focused on yaws eradication. He gained international recognition for leading research in Papua New Guinea that demonstrated the effectiveness of mass drug administration with azithromycin to treat and potentially eliminate yaws, a chronic bacterial infection affecting vulnerable populations in tropical regions.

Beyond his fieldwork abroad, Mitjà has been an active public health advocate in Spain, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. He advised regional governments, promoted widespread testing and early intervention strategies, and became a prominent public voice in discussions about pandemic control measures. In addition to his clinical and research roles at German Trias i Pujol University Hospital in Barcelona, he has also been involved in humanitarian initiatives aimed at improving healthcare access and disease prevention in underserved communities.