Rajesh Gandhi, MD is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and leader of the Massachusetts General Hospital ACTG Clinical Research Site in the Harvard/Boston/Providence Clinical Trials Unit. He has been involved with the ACTG for almost 20 years. Dr. Gandhi has led or been involved with multiple ACTG trials evaluating the impact of interventions on the HIV reservoir, including the effect on the latent reservoir of initiating intensive therapy in treatment-naïve participants, antiretroviral intensification, latency reversal with an HDAC inhibitor, and modulation of latency reversal with estrogen blockade in women with HIV. Given the need to answer critical questions regarding HIV persistence to inform the development of novel interventions aimed at curing HIV, Dr. Gandhi serves as protocol co-chair of ACTG A5321, a longitudinal cohort study examining a number of immunologic, pharmacologic, and virologic contributors to HIV reservoirs among participants on long-term ART. Dr. Gandhi is a former chair of the HIV-1 Reservoirs and Eradication Transformative Science Group, or Cure TSG, and is now on the ACTG Executive Committee. In addition to his work on HIV reservoirs, Dr. Gandhi has been involved in ACTG studies of therapeutic vaccines, interventions designed to decrease immune activation, and optimal treatment of people with drug-resistant HIV.
The ACTG values Dr. Rajesh Gandhi’s team-based and mission-based approach to clinical research, which exemplifies the general ethos of the ACTG. Dr. Gandhi looks forward to many more years of productive interactions in the ACTG as it continues to advance our knowledge in improving the lives of people with HIV.