Innovators UH CLINICAL RESEARCH CENTER RECEIVES $4M NIH GRANT TO STUDY HIV Through the science of health, people with HIV are living longer. But we’re now finding that HIV is acting as a chronic infection, contributing to continued inflammation and causing other diseases in the body. Addressing inflammation is the focus of groundbreaking research at the UH Clinical Research Center. Although new HIV therapies are safer and effectively halt the progression of the disease into AIDS, the accumulation of visceral abdominal fat, fat in the liver and around the heart remains a common and significant health challenge for those living with HIV. This fat is linked to increased systemic inflammation and risk of cardiovascular disease.
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Under the direction of Grace McComsey, MD, Vice President of Research and Director of the UH Clinical Research Center, Rainbow Babies & Children's Foundation John Kennell Chair of Excellence in Pediatrics, UH through its collaboration with Case Western Reserve University has received a $4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study whether a promising class of drugs never before studied in HIV can help alleviate fat abnormalities as well as systemic inflammation and cardiovascular risk in these patients. She and her team will also test the effectiveness of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs) in lessening insulin resistance, inflammation and cardiovascular risk. Results of the study should help providers better manage inflammation in all patients affected, not just those with HIV.
“The UH research team – the HIV metabolic center – is a pioneer in investigating inflammation in HIV and linking comorbidities to diabetes, cardiovascular disease, bone disease and obesity,” said Dr. McComsey.* The UH research team is also examining other health conditions related to long-term HIV status, including neurocognitive dysfunctions such as memory loss in people as young as 30 years old, and the effects of vitamin D deficiency on bone growth and asthma in pediatric patients with HIV. Dr. McComsey has also received several other grants that have been earmarked to study the inflammatory response pathways of zinc deficiency and HIV, heroin use in HIV patients and the effect of gut dysfunction on comorbidities. * Grace McComsey, MD, was named a 2020 Woman of Note by Crain’s Cleveland Business.
