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Dr. Suniti Solomon
Dr. Suniti Solomon is the founder-director of the Y.R. Gaitonde
Center for AIDS Research and Education (YRG CARE), a premier HIV/AIDS
care and support centre in Chennai. She and her colleagues documented
the first evidence of the HIV infection in India in 1986. When she
served the Madras Medical College and Government General Hospital
as a Professor of Microbiology, she set up the first voluntary testing
and counseling centre and an AIDS Research Group in Chennai
Dr. Solomon
is a member of the National Technical Team on women and AIDS, a
member of the advisory board of International AIDS Vaccine Initiative-India,
member of the Scientific Committee of the National AIDS Research
Institute, Pune, Government of India, a permanent member on the
Microbicides Committee of the Indian Council for Medical Research
(ICMR), and is a member on the board of AVAHAN, the India HIV/AIDS
Initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Trustee At-Large
of the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care; and
member of the Asia Data Safety Monitoring Board of the Division
of AIDS, NIH, USA.
Dr.
Solomon is the Indian Principal Investigator of several pioneering
HIV research studies: the US National Institute of Mental Health's
multi-country HIV/STD Prevention Trial; the US National Institute
of Allergy and Infectious Diseases' HIV Prevention Trial Networks;
NIH award that will measure stigma in health care settings in Southern
India; and a Phase III study of 6% CS GEL, a candidate microbicide
of CONRAD. She is the Director of the Southern India program of
the Brown-Tufts Fogarty AIDS Training and Research Project .
Dr
Solomon’s experience covers a wide range of aspects related
to HIV infection, from biomedical to socio-economic. She has deep
interest in community education and mobilization and leads an effort
that supports a Phase I HIV vaccine trial at Chennai with community
education and volunteer enrollment. She received a Lifetime Achievement
Award for her work with AIDS from the State Government's Medical
University in December 2001 and a second Lifetime Achievement Award
in 2005 from the Tamil Nadu State AIDS Control Society.
Dr
Solomon has published extensively on HIV epidemiology, prevention,
care and support, biomedical research, research ethics and gender
issues.
She
holds an M.D in microbiology from Madras University. She has trained
in pathology in the United Kingdom and the United States.
Dr.
Solomon currently serves as the President of the AIDS Society of
India.
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