Grant: Catalyst Grant: HIV/AIDS and Co-morbidities - Biomedical/Clinical

With the widespread use of highly active HIV drugs, patients with HIV/AIDs are living into their 40's and beyond. As a result, the burden of non-AIDs defining conditions such as heart disease and lung cancer is expected to increase dramatically over the next 20 years. Unfortunately, in the case of lung cancer, unless it is caught early in the disease, it is almost always lethal. We believe that by discovering novel blood-based biomarkers that relate to CVD and lung cancer, we may be able to simply and cost-effectively identify high-risk patients for intensive primary and secondary interventions to reduce their risk for these outcomes. Furthermore, these biomarkers may provide additional insight on the pathophysiology of CVD and lung cancer in the HIV population and present targets for future drug discoveries.