Consortium for Modeling and Analysis of Treatments and Interventions

Dr. Novak is a Professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases. He graduated from Grinnell College in 1976 and received his MD degree from Rush Medical College in 1981 and did all his post graduate training at UIC. He has been actively involved in HIV clinical care for 18 years and serves as the Director of the UIC HIV/AIDS Project, which he founded in 1989. This is a network of eight HIV community-based clinical and research sites located throughout Chicago. He is a co-investigator with the Terry Beirn Community Program for Clinical Research on AIDS (CPCRA), and has participated on numerous completed and current clinical trials. He has been a member on several study design teams, and currently co-chairs the CPCRA 058 (FIRST) Trial. He also co-chairs the Virology-Immunology Working Group for the CPCRA. He has been a principal investigator for the Chicago HIVNET site and was the site PI for the VaxGen Phase III vaccine trial and related research sponsored by the CDC (Project Vision).

Enrollment is underway for the NIH-sponsored Herpavac Trial, a phase III trial of a Herpes simplex 2 vaccine in young women. Enrollment in a phase I HIV vaccine trial sponsored by Merck is now complete. Dr. Novak is the site P.I. for the CDC sponsored HIV Outpatient Study, a multicenter observational database. He also participates in many industry-sponsored clinical trials in HIV-infected patients, from phase I through phase 4. His laboratory research has focused on the immunopathogenesis of HIV, and on co-infections found commonly in persons with HIV infection. Most recently, he has been studying the immunopathogenesis of HIV in the female genital tract as part of a program project grant through NICHD (NIH). This project provides a mechanism to conduct translational research on mechanisms involved in HIV transmission in populations at risk for HIV infection participating in other HIV prevention research trials.