Dr Fabio Romerio is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Human Virology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, where he heads the Laboratory of HIV Persistence. After completing his doctoral studies at the University of Pavia, Italy, Dr Romerio moved to the US where he trained first with Dr David Margolis and then with Dr Robert Gallo. His main research focus is the development of a functional cure for HIV by exploiting the ability of the HIV antisense transcript (Ast) to promote transcriptional silencing and viral latency. He is also interested in elucidating the role of the HIV antisense protein (ASP) in viral spread, replication and pathogenesis.

Dr Angela Wahl is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Center for AIDS Research at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Dr Wahl’s research is focused on the development and implementation of precision animal models to study HIV transmission, pathogenesis, persistence, prevention and cure. As an amfAR Mathilde Krim Fellow, Dr Wahl developed an oral HIV transmission model, which she used to discover the role of breast milk in preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission. She currently leads a large multi-institutional programme to investigate the role of human gut microbiota in HIV acquisition, pathogenesis and persistence.

Dr Aurelio Orta-Reséndiz graduated as an MD from the Universidad del Valle de México, Querétaro Campus, and completed a Master’s in health sciences with the Mexican Instituto Politécnico Nacional. In recent years, he has collaborated in basic and clinical research projects on HIV persistence, drug resistance and HCV at the Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán and as a scientific advisor for the Mexican Network of Positive Adolescents and Young People. He has actively participated in projects about youth, sexual and reproductive health and HIV for the International AIDS Society and Women Deliver.

Dr Elizabeth Wonderlich is a research scientist within the Infectious Disease Research team at Southern Research, leading efforts of HIV reservoir quantification in clinical trial samples. She is also co-principal investigator for the Quantitative Viral Outgrowth Assay service contract administered by the Division of AIDS at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. Over the past 15 years in research, she has explored host-pathogen interactions by working to elucidate mechanisms of HIV immune evasion, HIV altering immune responses and its relationship with disease pathogenesis, and latent HIV reservoir reactivation and quantification. Dr Wonderlich earned her BSc in biology with a focus on genetics and developmental biology at the Pennsylvania State University. In 2010, she acquired her DPhil in cellular and molecular biology in the lab of Dr Kathleen Collins at the University of Michigan. In 2016, Dr Wonderlich completed her post-doctoral fellowship in Dr Simon Barratt-Boyes’ lab and joined the faculty of the Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology at the University of Pittsburgh.

Laura Waters is a genitourinary/HIV consultant and HIV and hepatitis lead at the Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust’s Mortimer Market Centre, London. She works predominantly in HIV outpatient facilities. Laura previously worked in clinical trials at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and Brighton and Sussex Clinical Trials Unit, gaining an MD on ART switch. She is principal or chief investigator on several antiretroviral trials. She is Chair of the British HIV Association (BHIVA) treatment guidelines, Chair of the BHIVA conferences sub-committee and serves on the BHIVA executive committee. She is the previous Chair of the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH) HIV Special Interest Group and sits on the BASHH Board; she is Chair of BASHH and Faculty of Sexual & Reproductive Healthcare sexual and reproductive health guidelines for people living with HIV. Laura is on the HIV Clinical Reference Group, advising National Health Service England about HIV care, and on the trials management group of IMPACT, a large PrEP trial. She has published and presented widely, is a regular columnist for Boyz magazine, is a Terrence Higgins Trust trustee and Chair of the HalveIt campaign.

Colleen Kelley is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, with a multidisciplinary background and experience in clinical HIV/STI medicine, HIV/STI epidemiology and clinical outcomes research, and laboratory-based research. She cares for people living with HIV at a large, Ryan White clinic and is also active in PrEP implementation in Atlanta. The goal of her research is to work towards optimizing efficacy of biomedical HIV prevention interventions, such as an HIV vaccine, PrEP/PEP and microbicides, for populations more vulnerable to acquiring HIV through a better understanding of mucosal HIV susceptibility.

Dr James McMahon is an infectious diseases physician and Head of Clinical Research at the Alfred Hospital, and infectious diseases physician at Monash Medical Centre, both in Melbourne, Australia. Dr McMahon also chairs the Australasian Society for HIV Medicine Antiretroviral Guidelines Committee. His main research interests are in the field of HIV cure, including clinical trials to image tissue sites of persistent HIV and clinical trials of interventions to target the HIV reservoir.

Juan Luis Mosqueda Gómez, MD, MSc, is Director of the Ambulatory Center for Prevention and Attention of HIV/AIDS and STDs in Leon Guanajuato and Professor at the University of Guanajuato. He is specialist in infectious diseases, and he has a Master’s in clinical research. He has been Director of the AIDS Council of Guanajuato and Minister of Health of Guanajuato. Dr Mosqueda is a member of the Scientific Committee for Mexican Antiretroviral Treatment Guidelines, member of the National Committee of Antiretroviral Resistance and member of the National System of Investigators. He has been involved as a principal investigator or sub-investigator in HIV clinical trials.

Omar Sued is a certified internal medicine and infectious diseases specialist, holding a Master’s and a PhD from the University of Barcelona. He has worked in different settings, including public and private hospitals, prisons, primary care centres and public health agencies in Argentina and Spain. In 2009-2012, he served as Regional HIV Advisor for Latin America and the Caribbean at PAHO/WHO. In 2016, he was President of the XVI Argentinean Infectious Diseases Congress. Currently, he works as Research Director at Fundación Huésped, Buenos Aires, and was recently elected President of the Argentinean Infectious Disease Society for the period 2019-2021.

Ana Cristina Garcia Ferreira is an infectious diseases physician and researcher at the Evandro Chagas National Institute of Infectious Diseases-Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She has a Master’s and a PhD in Clinical Research and Infectious Diseases, and has been working in clinical research for nine years. She participates in several studies in HIV prevention and treatment in partnership with the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) and the HIV Prevention Trials Network. She is the FIOCRUZ principal investigator of the ACTG PHOENIx study with latent TB prophylaxis intervention. She has experience in epidemiological studies, especially in cohort studies. She coordinates a local transgender cohort and a functional cure and acute HIV infection study at FIOCRUZ. She also participates in studies on PREP implementation in transgender women.

Dr. Antonio Camiro is a clinical researcher with 3 years of experience in the Mexican HIV programme. He is part of the scientific team of the HIV clinic of the Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán in Mexico City, a prestigious hospital that is part of the Mexican National Institute of Public Health. He is working on several projects on HIV epidemiology and immunopathogenesis in collaboration with other organizations including the Fundación Huésped in Argentina and the University of Modena in Italy. He is a Doctor of Medicine with a Master’s in Medical Sciences from the Universidad Anahuac México. Currently, he is undergoing his Internal Medicine residency at the Centro Médico ABC in Mexico City.

Ms Nicolette Naidoo, MPH, PhD candidate, has over 11 years of progressive public health experience, including implementation science and M&E. As Programme Head within the Implementation Science division at the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute, she is a co-investigator on a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-funded cluster randomized trial evaluating the impact of an asset building intervention for improving adolescent outcomes. Ms Naidoo is also the Chief of Party of a five-year USAID-funded multi-province grant implementing schools-based HIV and gender-based violence prevention programming while providing technical input into the delivery of PrEP for adolescent girls and young women.

Sergio Bautista-Arredondo is the Director of the Division of Health Economics and Health Systems Innovations at the National Institute of Public Health in Mexico. As a health economist, he has applied microeconomic theory and methods on the impact and economic evaluation of public health programmes. He has studied the efficiency of health production in the context of various interventions in Latin America and Africa. Sergio also leads and collaborates in research projects designing or evaluating interventions based on behavioural economics to motivate a more effective and efficient performance in health providers, as well as health-seeking and preventive behaviour in various populations.

Arantxa Colchero is a health economist working as an Associate Professor at the National Institute of Public Health, Mexico. She earned her PhD in health systems research at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Over the past decade, her career has been devoted to analysis of nutrition transition in developing countries, studying how food environments have contributed to the obesity epidemic in urban and rural areas. She has been working on the design and impact evaluation of fiscal policies to reduce the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) and energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods in Mexico. She is evaluating scenarios of tax increases in Mexico for alcohol, SSB and non-essential food. Arantxa has also collaborated in the impact evaluation of marketing regulation and labelling in Chile. Other topics of interest are the design and evaluation of HIV/AIDS interventions in most vulnerable populations and estimation of the health and economic burden of suboptimal breastfeeding practices in Mexico.

As a global health researcher with over 10 years of international experience, Heleen Vermandere is proficient in collecting qualitative and quantitative data in challenging contexts. She combines health sciences, epidemiology and sociology to study health behaviour and to evaluate the impact of health programmes. She has worked primarily on sexual and reproductive health and rights in sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on infectious diseases, such as HIV/AIDS and cervical cancer. For her doctoral thesis, she evaluated the acceptability and uptake of the HPV vaccine in Kenya. In addition, she has a strong interest in gender and has conducted studies on female genital mutilation and violence against women in Egypt.

Ines Aristegui is a psychologist and a researcher working at Fundación Huésped and Universidad de Palermo in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Since 2010, she has coordinated the social research area at Fundación Huésped as part of a multidisciplinary team that conducts quantitative and qualitative social studies with particular focus on people living with HIV and key and vulnerable populations. She also leads the implementation of transgender projects at public hospitals and community-based organizations.

Ricardo Baruch, MPH, PhD, is an activist and researcher working in the field of sexual and reproductive health, including LGBT health and HIV prevention. He has been a member of various civil society organizations and he worked for several years at the National Institute of Public Health in Mexico. Ricardo was the Youth Programme Coordinator at AIDS 2008 and has served on various committees for other AIDS conferences. He collaborates with news websites in Latin America, where he disseminates science news. Ricardo is currently working in the advocacy team of the International Planned Parenthood Federation.