Gerald H. Friedland, M.D.

• Professor Emeritus, Yale School of Medicine

Biography:

Dr. Friedland is the Director of the AIDS Program at Yale New Haven Hospital and Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology and Public Health at Yale School of Medicine. He is a former member of the Governing Council of the International AIDS Society, National Advisory Council, National Institute on Drug Abuse and Advisory Council, Office of AIDS Research, and currently serves on the WHO HIV/TB Working Group and as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York City.

Dr Friedland has been directly involved in the development of comprehensive HIV care programs since the beginning of the HIV epidemic in 1981. His work was initially in the Bronx, New York and since 1991, in New Haven, Connecticut. He has developed and directed large-scale clinical and epidemiologic studies among vulnerable populations with and at risk for HIV disease. His group presented the first convincing evidence of lack of transmission of HIV by close personal contact, defined the predictors of HIV transmission and natural history of HIV disease among injection drug users and the risk of reactivation of tuberculosis among those co-infected with M.Tb and HIV. More recently, Dr. Friedland has worked on clinical trials of antiretroviral therapies. He is currently the Principal Investigator of New England ProACT, a regional AIDS clinical trials network affiliated with the CPCRA/INSIGHT, an NIH supported multisite program specializing in large-scale antiretroviral therapy strategy trials. In this work he has focused on the recruitment, enrollment, retention and special issues of HIV therapeutics among injection drug users and other marginalized populations, including pioneering work in defining phamacokinetic drug interactions between HIV and substance abuse therapies.

Dr. Friedland's research also has focused on studies at the interface of biology, clinical care and behavior, including adherence to HIV therapies and the integration of prevention strategies and clinical care, notably in the development and testing of interventions to reduce HIV transmission risk among HIV+ persons in clinical care.

Dr. Friedland is also actively involved in HIV/AIDS international research aimed at providing access to antiretroviral therapy in resource limited settings. The major focus of this work is the integration of HIV and TB care and treatment in co-infected patients with the aim of improving diagnosis, treatment and outcome of both diseases. This work has led to the discovery of extensively resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB) as a major cause of death among HIV/TB co-infected patients in South Africa and now focuses on the diagnosis, treatment and reduction of transmission of multiple drug resistant (MDR) and XDR TB in HIV co-infected patients. Dr. Friedland directs and participates in several research projects addressing these issues in rural and urban South Africa, supported by charitable research foundations and the NIH. He is a Visiting Professor at the Nelson. R Mandela School of Medicine of the University of KwaZulu Natal in Durban, South Africa and the Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University.

CIRA Affiliated Projects:

• Combating MDR and SDR TB and HIV in Rural South Africa

• Confronting XDR TB and HIV in Rural South Africa

• Expansion and Integration of TB/HIV Care and Treatment in Rural KwaZulu Natal, South Africa

• Opioids & HIV Medications: Interactions in Drug Abusers

• Provision of HIV Care and Antiretroviral Therapy Through a Strengthened Community-Based Tuberculosis Directly Observed Therapy Program in Rural South Africa: The Sizon’qoba ("We Shall Overcome") Project

• Provision of Tuberculosis and Antiretroviral Therapy in Rural KwaZulu Natal