Nithya Srinivas, a graduate student at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, is the recipient of the IAS/ANRS Lange-van Tongeren Prize for Young Investigators in the clinical sciences track from the International AIDS Society and the France Recherche Nord & Sud Sida-HIV Hépatites.
Srinivas is a fourth-year student in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics. She is a member of the UNC Graduate School’s Royster Society of Fellows. Her adviser is Angela Kashuba, Pharm.D., DPET chair and the John and Deborah McNeill, Jr. Distinguished Professor at the School.
The four Lange-van Tongeren Prizes are $2,000 awards that support young researchers who demonstrate innovation, originality and quality in the field of HIV research. Srinivas was awarded this honor for her abstract, “SHIV Infection and Drug Transporters Influence Brain Tissue Concentrations of Efavirenz.” She will receive the award at the Ninth IAS Conference on HIV Science held in Paris July 23 to 26 and present her work in an oral abstract session on July 26
Srinivas is interested in clinical pharmacology and translational research applied to HIV/AIDS to assist in drug development. She studies the distribution of antiretroviral drugs into brain tissue and the relationship between drug exposure and neurocognitive impairment in HIV-patients.
“Nithya won this award in the clinical-sciences track based on innovation, originality and quality,” Kashuba said. “Her work in improving the pharmacology data we have on antiretroviral distribution in brain tissue has implications for why we see continued cognitive impairment in HIV-infected individuals and will help lead to better precision medicine in this population.”
Srinivas received a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences in Bangalore, India, and enrolled at UNC in 2014. She is a recipient of the Royster Fellowship from the UNC Graduate School and an ASCPT Presidential Trainee Award.
The Lange-van Tongeren prizes are granted to the top-scoring abstract in each of four tracks: basic science, clinical science, prevention science and implementation science.
In 2015, the Young Investigator Prize was renamed in memory of Joep Lange and Jacqueline van Tongeren. Lange and van Tongeren were passengers on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down near Hrabove, Ukraine, in 2014. They were on their way to Melbourne, Australia, to attend the 20th International AIDS Conference.