Dr. Ann Duerr is committed to addressing health issues globally, especially in resource-constrained settings. Her research currently includes multidisciplinary studies of HIV prevention and treatment among underserved populations, including sexual and gender minorities in Peru. These studies involve sexual-network analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis of prevention interventions, detailed laboratory analysis of the impact of substance use and early initiation of antiretroviral therapy, or ART, on HIV reservoir, microbiome, and inflammation, as well as the establishment of a large specimen repository shared with collaborators. She is also currently conducting a study of responses to HPV vaccine among children in Peru, Haiti, and Brazil. The current WHO guidelines include a recommendation for a single dose of HPV vaccine in children/adolescents without HIV, and an additional 1 or 2 doses for children with HIV. Because there is little or no data on the number of doses needed for protection in children with HIV and given the operational hurdles to delivering additional doses, this study seeks to clarify the number of doses needed by comparing responses to 1, 2, or 3 doses in children with HIV to responses in children without HIV from the same communities. Dr. Duerr is also conducting a related study documenting barriers to implementing additional HPV vaccine doses for girls with HIV in Zambia.
As Director for Scientific Affairs at the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN), she leads efforts to support timely publication of results from HIV vaccine trials. She is also the director of Development for the University of Washington’s Strategic Analysis, Research & Training Center, which provides research consulting to the Gates Foundation, World Health Organization, Boston Scientific and other clients using teams of graduate student research assistants and UW faculty. Prior to joining the HVTN in 2003, she led a research group at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention focused on HIV and women. Her work there included a large cohort study in American women characterizing the impact of HIV infection, including effects on reproductive health and gynecologic conditions, trials in Africa for prevention of HIV transmission from mothers to their infants during breastfeeding and studies of female condoms to prevent sexually transmitted diseases and HIV. Another research focus has been HIV prevention in adolescent girls and young women in Africa – Dr. Duerr served for two years as a consultant to the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) on the DREAMS Initiative, an HIV prevention program for adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in Africa.
Dr. Duerr received her B.Sc. in Biochemistry from McGill University, her Ph.D. in Biology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, her M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and her M.P.H. from Johns Hopkins.