Specialization
infectious diseases
Focus of research
- Improving the understanding and management of co-morbidity and co-infection in people living with HIV
- Individualizing HIV care
- Epidemiology of HIV in the Netherlands
Since the inception of the AGEhIV cohort study in 2009 I have together with the study PI prof. P. Reiss (Professor of Internal Medicine, in particular the complications of HIV treatment), acted as a senior clinical co-investigator of the study contributing to the design and excecution of a range of studies performed by successive PhD students on the study. (www.agehiv.nl)
As of 2016 I acted as the principal investigator of the MC Free study which aims to eliminate hepatitis C infections in men who have sex with men. This study nicely complements the HIV transmission elimination Amsterdam (www.hteam.nl) aiming to reduce new HIV infections in Amsterdam. As of 2017 I am a member of H team's executive committee. Both MC Free and H-team are prominent examples of implementation research projects.
As of 2020 I am leading a project to develop a national toolkit for peer-to-peer support in HIV care and initiated a PROMS-based program to improve the quality of care of people living with HIV at the Amsterdam UMC HIV-outpatient clinic. As a direct result from this program Amsterdam UMC decided to appoint a peer-navigator as part of the HIV treatment team in Amsterdam.
From 2021 I am chair of the Board of Stichting hiv monitoring (SHM) foundation (ATHENA cohort ),an insititute that collects data on people living with HIV in the Netherlands. Apart from being responsible for SHMs yearly monitoring report, as a PI of the ATHENA cohort I collaborate with multiple international partners in large international consortia resulting in numerous high impact scientific publications. In 2023, in collaboration with Amsterdam Health technology Institute; Amsterdam UMC and AIDS fonds, we have launched a dashboard that will provide up to date regional insights in the hiv epidemic in the Netherlands and can be used to develop regional strategies to accelerate HIV elimination.
I am a member of the HIV treatment guideline committee of the European AIDS Clinical Society; the national HCV and HBV treatment guideline committee. Furthermore I am a member of the scientific committee of the HIV Glasgow conference and the The International Workshop on HIV and Hepatitis Observational Databases (IWHOD).