UBC will lead a pan-Canadian study examining accelerated aging in women resulting from HIV infection or antiretroviral therapy (ART), as well as the same phenomena in their children.
The project includes three principal investigators at UBC – Helene Cote, an Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Deborah Money, a Professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, and Neora Pick, a Clinical Associate Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases. Other principal investigators are based at the University of Montreal and the University of Toronto. The team’s expertise spans basic science and clinical research, infectious disease, epidemiology and biostatistics.
Although ART has been immensely successful in prolonging the lives of HIV-infected individuals, and in preventing the transmission of the virus from mothers to children (usually during delivery), there are still numerous adverse effects – or “co-morbidities” – that may result from being infected or being treated with ART. In addition, a growing body of evidence indicates that children exposed to the virus or to ART through their mothers — but who are not infected — run a higher risk of health problems.
The five-year, $2.5 million grant will enable the team to study several issues – at the molecular, cellular and clinical levels – in more than 1,000 women and children in Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. Those include:
- Aging-associated hormonal, metabolic and reproductive abnormalities, as well as osteoporosis, in HIV-infected women;
- Signs of cellular aging in HIV-infected women during pregnancy, and consequences to their children, including dysfunction of mitochondria, the energy-producing component of cells, and the shortening of telomeres, the “caps” that sit at the end of chromosomes;
- Neurodevelopmental and neurocognitive impacts, including autism, on uninfected children who were exposed to HIV or ART;
- The effect of other infections, such as Hepatitis C, that often affect people living with HIV;
- Immunological abnormalities in HIV-exposed uninfected children.
- Fat redistribution in HIV-exposed uninfected children, a potential risk factor for coronary artery disease and Type 2 diabetes later in life.
The project is one of six projects to receive new grants, announced today, through the HIV/AIDS Research Initiative of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
“Today’s investment will increase our understanding of HIV/AIDS and help us identify new ways to improve the health of those affected by it,” said federal Minister of Health Leona Aglukkaq.
- Helene Cote
- Deborah Money
- Neora Pick