NIDA–International AIDS Society Award Four New Fellowships, Add Partner

NIDA and the International AIDS Society (IAS) have awarded postdoctoral fellowships to scientists from Malaysia, Uganda, and Vietnam. IAS and NIDA cosponsor the fellowships, which provide 18 months of training with an expert in drug abuse-related HIV to advance scientific understanding of the linkages between drug use and HIV while fostering multinational research. For 2014, the Agence Nationale de Recherche sur le Sida et les hépatitis virales (ANRS) of France has agreed to support one additional fellowship. The 2013 NIDA–IAS Fellows are:

• Sin How Lim, Ph.D., University of Malaya, Malaysia, will use mobile phones and interactive voice response and intervention technology to collect behavioral data on concurrent substance use and sexual risk behaviors among men who have sex with men in Malaysia. His mentor is Frederick Altice, M.D., M.A., Yale University.
• Francis Bajunirwe, Ph.D., Mbarara University, Uganda, will analyze the impact of alcohol and other substance use on response to antiretroviral treatment in rural Uganda. His mentor is David Bangsberg, M.D., M.P.H., Harvard Medical School.
• Anh Dam Tran, Ph.D., Vietnam, will combine a dynamic epidemic model with a cross-sectional survey to investigate the impact of expanding eligibility criteria for methadone maintenance treatment on drug use, health-related quality of life, and HIV transmission among Vietnamese drug users. Greg Zaric, University of Western Ontario, Canada, will mentor Dr. Tran, who earned her doctoral degree at the University of New South Wales, Australia, in July 2013.
• Dr. Bach Xuan Tran, Ph.D., Hanoi Medical University, Vietnam, will examine the cost-effectiveness and patients’ willingness to pay for three models of dispensing methadone to treat opioid dependence in Vietnam. His mentor is Carl Latkin, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University.