Deborah Persaud (born 23 August 1960) is a Guyanese-born American

virologist Virology is the scientific study of biological viruses. It is a subfield of microbiology that focuses on their detection, structure, classification and evolution, their methods of infection and exploitation of host cells for reproduction, their ...

who primarily works on

HIV/AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...

Johns Hopkins Children's Center Johns Hopkins Children's Center (JHCC) is a nationally ranked, pediatric acute care children's teaching hospital located in Baltimore, Maryland, adjacent to Johns Hopkins Hospital. The hospital has 196 pediatric beds and is affiliated the Johns Ho ...

Biography

Persaud was born on 23 August 1960 in

Port Mourant Port Mourant is a town on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast in East Berbice-Corentyne, Guyana. It is the birthplace of the late president Cheddi Jagan as well as many of Guyana's most famous Cricket, cricketers. Port Mourant was originally a suga ...

East Berbice-Corentyne East Berbice-Corentyne (Region 6) is one of ten regions in Guyana covering the whole of the east of the country. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the north, the Nickerie District and Sipaliwini District of Suriname to the east, Brazil to the sou ...

Guyana Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the ...

. At age 16 she moved to

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. Persaud attended the

New York University School of Medicine NYU Grossman School of Medicine is a medical school of New York University, a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1841 and is one of two medical schools of the university, with the other being the Long Island School of ...

after receiving her undergraduate degree from York College CUNY. She also earned a master's degree at the

. She started residency at the

Babies Hospital Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital of NewYork-Presbyterian (MSCH or CHONY) is a women's and children's hospital at 3959 Broadway, near West 165th Street, in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It is a part of NewYork-Pr ...

of New York and finished her chief residency at the same hospital. Persaud later was a fellow at the

. She began her academic career as an assistant professor of pediatrics at the

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM) is the medical school of Johns Hopkins University, a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1893, the School of Medicine shares a campus with the Johns Hopkins Hospi ...

from 1997 to 2004. In 2005, Persaud became an associate professor of pediatrics at the

Research

The main topic of Persaud's research is AIDS and

HIV The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of ''Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune ...

of children. However, her research started from research about HIV in adults. In 2003, she stated about the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)- type1 included in the

subtypes of HIV The subtypes of HIV include two major types, HIV type 1 (HIV-1) and HIV type 2 (HIV-2). HIV-1 is related to viruses found in chimpanzees and gorillas living in western Africa, while HIV-2 viruses are related to viruses found in the sooty mangabey, ...

. For the HIV patient, the HAART (highly active antiretroviral therapy) is used as treatment. The HAART regimen includes some drugs containing nucleoside

reverse transcriptase inhibitor Reverse-transcriptase inhibitors (RTIs) are a class of antiretroviral drugs used to treat HIV infection or AIDS, and in some cases hepatitis B. RTIs inhibit activity of reverse transcriptase, a viral DNA polymerase that is required for replicati ...

s (NRTIs) and protease inhibitor (PI), and non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTI). The HAART has important function to suppress the levels of HIV-1 to below quantification. HIV-1 persists in cellular reservoirs of CD4+ continually with low-level viremia in adults, and this is very sensitive. Persaud and her research team found that viremia persists in children with plasma virus remaining at a level under the limit of detection of clinical assays. When children with HIV-1 receive HAART treatment, the viremia that is difficult to observe is continued virus production without resistance in the protease gene. Persaud's research team tried to find a novel culture assay that can stimulate the virus production during their latent, integrated HIV-1 in resting CD4+ T cells with the antiretroviral drugs. These drugs interfere with the replication of unintegrated virus. They also demonstrated the facts that HIV-1 polymerase sequences from the resting CD4+ T cells of the patients. By following this research, her research topic has been about antiretroviral therapy. In 2009, her research team focused on the ongoing human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). From this research, it was figured out ongoing virus replication contributes to low-level viremia in patients on HAART, and this ongoing replication is subject to CD8+ T-cell selective pressure. After that, she suggested the induction therapy by using protease-inhibitors has influenced the effect of NNRTI (non-Nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors) resistance on virologic response to nevirapine-based HAART in children patients of HIV. For a long time, her research topic has been focusing on the therapy of HIV-1 especially with the child patients. In order to develop the therapy, she has been explained about the mechanism using the NNRTI of HAART. In 2013 Persaud worked as part of a team who showed that a baby had been cured of HIV by giving it anti-HIV drugs; she won the

Elizabeth Glaser Elizabeth Glaser (born Elizabeth Meyer; – ) was an American AIDS activist and child advocate married to actor and director Paul Michael Glaser. She contracted HIV very early in the modern AIDS epidemic after receiving an HIV-contaminated blo ...

Scientist Award and was featured in ''Time'' magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in 2013. She was also included in ''Nature'' 10 for 2013, by the journal ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...

''. In 2014 Persaud's work contributed to a second baby being cured of HIV.

Professional activity

* Pediatric AIDS Clinical Trials Group, Virology Core Committee (2000), Vaccine Subcommittee (2001) and Immunology Subcommittee (2001) * International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trials Group(IMPAACT) Laboratory Committee(2006) * NIH study section, AIDS Drug Development and Therapeutics (2006) * Foundation Grant review: Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and AMFAR (2006-2007) * NIH Bench-to-bedside (2006, 2008) * International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trials Group(IMPAACT) Subspeciality Laboratory * Program Director, Pediatric Infectious Diseases Fellowship * Member of Infectious Diseases Society of America, Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society and Society for Pediatric Research

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Persaud, Deborah 1960 births Living people Women virologists New York University Grossman School of Medicine alumni HIV/AIDS researchers Guyanese scientists York College, City University of New York alumni