Steering Group Members

David Back is Professor (Emeritus) of Pharmacology at the University of Liverpool and has worked in the area of pharmacokinetics and drug-drug interactions for more than 30 years. He established the Liverpool HIV Pharmacology Group (LHPG) in 1987 and subsequently the Liverpool group has been at the forefront of pharmacological research of anti-HIV drugs. Currently there are numerous ongoing pharmacokinetic, pharmacogenetic and molecular- based studies involving local, national and international collaborations.

David has authored ~450 publications. He is a former Editor of the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and is on the Editorial Board of numerous journals. In 2007 he was awarded the Lilly Prize from the British Pharmacological Society for outstanding contribution to Clinical Pharmacology and in 2015 a Lifetime achievement award from EACS.

Saye Khoo is a Professor of Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Liverpool and Honorary Consultant Physician in Infectious Diseases.

Professor Khoo is actively involved in HIV service development locally and nationally. Research interests centre on the pharmacology of HIV treatment failure. This includes the role of therapeutic drug monitoring, population pharmacokinetic modelling, investigation of drug interactions, molecular characterisation of drug metabolism and disposition pathways and the role of host genetic variability in influencing drug exposure and response. There is also a focus on HIV therapy in resource-poor settings, and the pharmacology of anti-tuberculous therapy

He currently serves on the British HIV Association Treatment Guidelines Committee, the PENTA Pharmacology Steering Group, and is on the editorial board of several journals.

Catia obtained a degree in Pharmacy followed by a PhD in Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the pharmacogenetics of drug transporters within the Division of Clinical Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA.

Catia was recently appointed Associate Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases & Hospital Epidemiology at the University Hospital of Basel. Her research focuses on pharmacological and genetic determinants of antiretroviral drug response and on the simulation of antiretroviral drug pharmacokinetics and drug-drug interactions using PBPK modeling. Catia currently serves on the European AIDS Clinical Society (EACS) guidelines committee and is a member of the scientific board of the Swiss HIV Cohort Study. Within the website team, Catia is notably in charge of evaluating the likelihood of drug-drug interactions.

Dr Mas Chaponda is an HIV physician in both the Infectious Diseases and GUM departments at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital and is an Executive Member of the British HIV Association. His role on Cheshire and Merseyside HIV network and the HIV Clinical Reference Group includes interaction with commissioners of HIV services and his aim is to involve new consultants and registrars in streamlining HIV services and to improve their education as well as to engage with community-based partners.

David Burger (Oct. 20, 1964) received his Pharmacy Degree at the Utrecht University in 1990. He completed his PhD thesis, titled “Bio-analysis and clinical pharmacokinetics of antiretroviral agents in HIV-infected individuals” at the Slotervaart Hospital, Amsterdam, in 1994. After this, he moved to the Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, for his hospital pharmacist training. 

Since 1997 he has been leading a research group focussing on clinical pharmacology of antimicrobial agents with emphasis on HIV, TB, fungal infections, and HCV. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the www.hiv-druginteractions.org and www.hep-druginteractions.org websites on behalf of the European AIDS Clinical Society.  More recently, a research line on clinical pharmacology of cancer treatment was initiated within the Department of Pharmacy; as a result David is now on the Editorial Board of http://www.cancer-druginteractions.org.

He is a Section Editor of the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and a member of the editorial boards of TDM, JAIDS, JAC, Antiviral Therapy.

Since April 2011 he has been appointed as a Professor of Clinical Pharmacy at the Radboud University Nijmegen. He is (co-) author of more than 400 publications in this field and has supervised 25 completed PhD theses. The topics of his interest are drug-drug interactions, pediatric pharmacology, therapeutic drug monitoring, and operational research in resource-limited countries.

Jonathan M. Schapiro MD has devoted his career to HIV clinical care, research and education since completing his Fellowship in Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine Center For AIDS Research.

Dr. Schapiro’s research has focused on the causes of antiretroviral drug failure, interventions to optimize clinical care, and new drug development. His interests have include resistance and cross-resistance between drugs, associations between resistance and pharmacology, development of new antiretroviral agents with improved resistance and pharmacological profiles, the clinical utility of resistance and drug level testing, and integrating resistance assays and other diagnostics into clinical care. He has been involved in the development of advanced interpretation systems for these assays, and has worked to highlight the importance of interactions between drug exposure and resistance. His publications have appeared in leading papers such as Annals of Internal Medicine and The Lancet. Dr. Schapiro is very active in educational initiatives; He has Co-Directed the Stanford University HIV Medicine Course and is involved in numerous programs for AIDS treating physicians. These have focused on both resource rich as well as resource limited settings. He has served as a member of numerous international HIV expert panels and working groups including the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Antiviral Drugs Advisory Committee and the IAS-USA Drug Resistance Group. Dr. Schapiro is a member of the Organizing and Scientific Committees of major HIV conferences and workshops. He currently runs the HIV/AIDS clinic at the National Hemophilia Center in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Charles Flexner is Professor of Medicine in the Divisions of Clinical Pharmacology and Infectious Diseases, and Professor of Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is also Professor of International Health in the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Professor Flexner is an expert on the basic and clinical pharmacology of drugs for HIV/AIDS and related infections, including viral hepatitis, tuberculosis and long acting antivirals. His scientific contributions include work on the important roles of pharmacokinetic enhancement, adherence, and dosing frequency in the long-term management of HIV/AIDS and he has published extensively on drug transport, metabolism and drug interactions. Professor Flexner is the Principal Investigator of the Johns Hopkins University AIDS Clinical Trials Unit (ACTU) supported by the NIH. He is a member of the editorial board of numerous scientific journals and currently serves as a consultant to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Clinton Health Access Initiative.

Head of the Prevention, Care and Treatment Programme at the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI). Mohammed is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London and he was awarded a doctorate degree from Trinity College Dublin. Mohammed’s work is focussed on the medical management of infectious diseases in developing country context.  He supervises a HIV clinic providing specialised HIV care to over 8000 patients in Kampala, Uganda.

Since 2006, Mohammed has worked at IDI undertaking clinical pharmacology research in the fields of HIV, tuberculosis and malaria; plus health economics evaluations for interventions relevant to public health in developing countries. His is a clinical investigator on studies investigating drug-drug interactions between antiretroviral drugs and contraceptives, antiretroviral and anti-tuberculosis agents and antiretroviral and antimalarial drugs. Also, his research interests include pharmacokinetics of antiretroviral drugs in pregnancy and postpartum and traditional medicines.

Mohammed is the President of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) Africa Network.

Dr Marta Boffito, MD, PhD, FRCP, is a Consultant physician at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, and Reader at Imperial College, London, London UK. She is the Clinical Research Lead of the Clinical Research Facility and HIV Service Lead at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, where she runs numerous research projects and clinical trials, she consults on complex pharmacological issues, sees patients with HIV (she founded the first HIV over-50-years clinic in London, UK), and teaches HIV medicine and pharmacology at Imperial College London and in various national and international settings.

She trained in Italy, the USA, and the UK and has a special interest in antiretroviral drug pharmacology: from prevention to treatment. In these areas she contributes to the educational, scientific, and guideline-formulation activities of national bodies including the British HIV Association. She has published over 150 peer-reviewed articles, editorials, and reviews. She has been involved in capacity building programmes for resource-limited settings (e.g. Uganda) and is an applicant on numerous successful collaborative grants.