The 29th Annual Canadian Conference on HIV/AIDS Research (CAHR 2020) will take place May 1-2 and, this year, it’s going virtual. The event features a range of sessions including research presentations and oral abstracts to share advancements in HIV research.

This year’s conference theme is Hopes, Victories and Perseverance beyond 2020.

Below, we summarize the sessions that CTN Investigators are involved in, either as a presenter or author.

*all times stated are in Eastern Daylight Time

Core Agenda

Friday, May 1

10.15-11.15 AM
Dr Mark Wainberg Lecture – HIV Elimination: Dare to Dream
Dr. Cécile Tremblay will discuss the evolution of HIV prevention strategies, the pathophysiological mechanisms affecting the health of people living with HIV, and priority research areas in HIV primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention fields.

1.00-2.15 PM
A Roadmap for Brain Health in HIV: New Views and Practical Tools for the Canadian Context
Drs. Lesley K. Fellows and Marie-Josée Brouillette will join Drs. David Vance and Nancy E. Mayo to provide a framework for addressing mental health and cognitive challenges in people aging with HIV.

Saturday, May 2

11.00 AM-12.00 PM
COVID-19 & HIV Management…The Academic & Community Clinician Experiences and Perspectives
Drs. Jean-Pierre Routy and Jean-Guy Baril will discuss the challenges, changes and new research at an academic research centre, and present provincial guidance on the management of HIV and COVID-19 to be used as a reference for those who are interested.

Click here for the full conference agenda.

Oral Abstracts

Friday, May 1

3.30-5.30 PM

Haneesha Mohan, Monica Guzman-Lenis, Evelyn Y. Laurette, Tanvi Sanghvi, Oscar Tejada, Nicholas Greene, Andrew Copp, Lena Serghides. Reproductive Toxicity Studies to Evaluate Potential Neural Tube and Other Abnormalities Associated with Dolutegravir Exposure in Pregnancy.

Jason Brophy, Fatima Kakkar, Terry Lee, Michael T. Hawkes, Lindy Samson, Laura Sauvé, Stanley Read, Hugo Soudeyns, Ari Bitnun, EPIC4 Study Group. Neurodevelopmental and Mental Health Co-morbidities in Canadian Children and Adolescents Living with HIV in the EPIC4 cohort.

Hannah Hyde-de Sousa, Isabelle Boucoiran, Silvie Valois, Suzanne Taillefer, Marc Boucher, Hugo Soudeyns, Christian Renaud, Valérie Lamarre, Fatima Kakkar. Double Trouble: Increased Risk of Congenital Cytomegalovirus Infection Among HIV-exposed Newborns.

Rachel L. Miller, Angela McLaughlin, Richard H. Liang, Nathaniel Knight, Jinny Choi, Anh Q. Le, Chanson J. Brumme, Julio S. Montaner, Jeffrey B. Joy. A Novel Phylogenetic Approach to Prioritizing HIV-1 Transmission Clusters.

Emilia Clementi, Sofia Bartlett, Stanley Wong, Amanda Yu, Margo Pearce, Mawuena Binka, Dahn Jeong, Maria Alvarez, Prince Adu, James Wilton, Zahid Butt, Geoff McKee, Younathan Abdia, Jason Wong, Jane Buxton, Mel Krajden, Michael Otterstatter, Naveed Janjua. Using Population-level Latent Class Analysis to Classify People Living with HCV in British Columbia (BC) for Targeted Program Planning.

Charlotte Laniece Delaunay, Mathieu Maheu-Giroux, Sahar Saeed, Curtis Cooper, Joseph Cox, Mark Hull, Valérie Martel-Laferrière, Erica E. Moodie, Marie-Louise Vachon, Marina B. Klein. Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) Treatment, Injection Practices, and Access to Harm Reduction among HIV-HCV co-infected People who Inject Drugs in Montréal from 2003-2018.

Oralia Gómez-Ramírez, Kinnon MacKinnon, Devon Haag, Sophie Bannar-Martin, Maja Karlsson, Cathy Worthington, Daniel Grace, Mark Gilbert. Scale-up and sustainability of digital public health services for STBBI testing: An investigation of healthcare service and HIV policy context in British Columbia.

Caroline Dufour, Maria Julia Ruiz, Rosalie Ponte, Amélie Cattin, Tomas Wiche Salinas, Syim Salahuddin, Teslin Sandstrom, Stephanie Burke Schinkel, Cecilia T. Costiniuk, Mohammad-Ali Jenabian, Petronela Ancuta, Jean-Pierre Routy, Éric A. Cohen, Christopher Power, Jonathan Angel, Nicolas Chomont. Characterization of HIV reservoirs in multiple tissues collected post-mortem from two individuals on suppressive ART.

Oussama Meziane, Syim Salahuddin, Tram Pham, Omar Farnos, Ron Olivenstein, Amélie Pagliuzza, Elaine Thomson, Yulia Alexandrova, Marianna Orlova, Erwin Schurr, Nicolas Chomont, Eric A. Cohen, Mohammad-Ali Jenabian, Cecilia T. Costiniuk. HIV is seeded within pulmonary DN T-cells during acute infection and persists during long-term effective ART.

John Lin, Stephane Isnard, Rayoun Ramendra, Franck Dupuy, Brandon Fombuena, Jing Ouyang, Bertrand Lebouché, Cecilia Costiniuk, Réjean Thomas, Jason Szabo, Jean-Guy Baril, Benoit Trottier, Pierre Coté, Roger LeBlanc, Madeleine Durand, Cécile Tremblay, Jean-Pierre Routy. Plasma CXCL13 Correlates with Reservoir Size in Long-term ART-treated People Living With HIV.

Nancy E. Mayo, Marie-Josée E. Brouillette, Lesley K. Fellows. Successful Aging with HIV: Who and How?

Trevor A. Hart, Syed Noor, Shayna Skakoon-Sparling, Samer Lazkani, Abbie Parlette, Marc Messier-Peet, Allan Lal, Jordan Sang, Gaurav Parulekar, Daniel Grace, Gilles Lambert, Joseph Cox, Jody Jollimore, David Moore, Nathan J. Lachowsky, Darrell H. Tan. Depression is associated with bacterial sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (gbMSM).

Kenneth Monteith, Charlotte Guerlotté, Stella Tiné, Joseph Jean-Gilles, Paule-Inès Kadjo, Hugo Bissonnet, Joseph Cox, Mathilde Bombardier, Dieudonné Mwamba Kazadi, Marilou Gagnon, Nimâ Machouf, Rachel Laberge Mallette, Roland Nadeau, Yvon Couillard, Océane Apffel Font, David Lessard, Drissa Sia, Nitika Pant Pai, Janet Cleveland, Léna Gauthier-Paquette, Frédérick Pronovost, Bertrand Lebouché, Christina Zarowsky. Les barrières d’accès aux soins et aux traitements antirétroviraux (TAR) pour les personnes vivant avec le VIH (PVVIH) au statut d’immigration précaire ou temporaire au Québec.

Ivan Marbaniang, Erica Moodie, Herak Apelian, Olivier Ferlatte, Gilles Lambert, Trevor A. Hart, Daniel Grace, Nathan Lachowsky, David M. Moore, Joseph Cox. The role of perceived discrimination on suicidal ideation among gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men in Montreal.

Karine Blouin, Pascale Leclerc, Carole Morissette, Élise Roy, Michel Alary, Caty Blanchette, Maud Vallée. HIV and HCV Cascade of Care Among People Who Inject Drugs in the SurvUDI Network – 2003 to 2017.

Tessa Lawson Tattersall, Saira Mohammed, Joshua Edward, Aidan Ablona, Mark Hull, Troy Grennan. Preliminary results of the Dual Daily HIV and Syphilis Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (DuDHS) Trial.

Shayna Skakoon-Sparling, Nathan J. Lachowsky, Joseph Cox, David Moore, Gilles Lambert, Daniel Grace, Syed Noor, Graham Berlin, Jordan Sang, Jody Jollimore, Abbie Parlette, Allan Lal, Marc Messier-Peet, Trevor A. Hart. Social support and STBBI transmission behaviours among HIV-negative gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBM)

Delphine Planas, Rosalie Ponte, Amélie Pagliuzza, Augustine Fert, Laurence Raymond Marchand, Annie Gosselin, Franck Dupuy, Vikram Mehraj, Sylvie Lesage, Maged Peter Ghali, Jonathan B. Angel, Eric A. Cohen, Nicolas Chomont, Jean-Pierre Routy, Petronela Ancuta. Effect of Metformin Treatment on Non-Diabetic HIV-Infected Individuals on ART.

Katherine J. Lepik, Sidhant Guliani, Lu Wang, Marianne Harris, Linda Akagi, Junine Toy, Paul Sereda, Viviane D. Lima, Julio S. Montaner, Rolando Barrios. Declining Prevalence of Drug Interactions Between Antiretroviral and Other Drugs in Antiretroviral Therapy (ART)-Treated Persons in British Columbia (BC), 2010-2016.

Anh Le, Conan Woods, Tetyana Kalynyak, Robert Hollebakken, Kyle Cobarrubias, Jinny Choi, Weiyan Dong, Helena Louie, Viviane D. Lima, Marianne Harris, Silvia Guillemi, Peter Phillips, Julio S. Montaner, Zabrina L. Brumme, Chanson J. Brumme. Utility of HIV Drug Resistance Testing in Low Viral Load Samples.

Ludivine Veillette-Bourbeau, Martin Blais, Jessica Caruso, Marie Latendresse, Joanne Otis, the Phénix study group. Short-term impacts of the Phénix program: A promising community-based intervention to improve gbMSM’s sexual health and wellbeing.

Alexis Yero-Díaz, Omar Farnos, Henintsoa Rabezanahary, Ghita Benmadid-Laktout, Julien Clain, Gina Racine, Jérôme Estaquier, Mohammad-Ali Jenabian. Dynamics of regulatory and effector CD8 T-cells in mesenteric lymph nodes and blood during SIV infection of Rhesus Macaques and following early ART initiation

Blake Linthwaite, Nadine Kronfli, Kim Engler, David Lessard, Bertrand Lebouché, Joseph Cox. Effectiveness of an intervention to reengage HIV-positive patients into care (Lost & Found).

Tsegaye Bekele, Abigail E. Kroch, Adrian Betts, Trevor Hart, Barry Adam, Sergio Rueda. Syndemic Effects of Childhood Adverse Experiences, Depression, and Substance Use on Antiretroviral Non-adherence among Participants of the OHTN Cohort Study.

Mark Hull, Nathan Lachowsky, David Hall, Troy Grennan, Saira Mohammed, Cameron Bye, Karla Fisher, Robinson Truong, Leo Mitterni, Matthew Harding, Paul MacPherson, Kevin Woodward, Darrell H. Tan. PrEP uptake amongst MSM accessing sexual health services in Ontario and British Columbia – Results of the PrIMP Community Survey.

Yiqing Xia, Zoë R. Greenwald, Rachael M. Milwid, Claire Trottier, Michel Boissonnault, Neil Gaul, Louise Charest, Gabrielle Landry, Jason Szabo, Réjean Thomas, Mathieu Maheu-Giroux. Uptake of PrEP among Users of Non-occupational PEP: A Longitudinal Analysis of Attendees at a Large Sexual Health Clinic in Montréal (2013 – 2019).

Click here for a full list of abstracts.

Written By:

CTN Communications

The Communications Department assists Investigators, members, and staff in describing the work done at the Network and tell stories about the impact of the CTN.