The experts speak. Changing landscape of opportunistic infections. Interview by Vicki Glaser.

Abstract

William Powderly, M.D., is Professor of Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. Dr. Powderly joined the faculty in the Infectious Disease Division at the university in 1987 and became codirector of the division in 1995. He received his M.D. degree from University College Dublin in Ireland and completed internal medicine training in Dublin. He did his fellowship in infectious disease at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. He has served on numerous national and international committees, especially in the area of AIDS-related clinical research and is currently Vice-Chair of the Adult AIDS Clinical Trials Group and chair of its Scientific Steering Committee. Dr. Powderly has been actively involved in HIV-related clinical research for the last 15 years. He is currently Principal Investigator of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded AIDS Clinical Trials Unit at Washington University, which is part of the Adult AIDS Clinical Trials Group. His own research originally focused on opportunistic infections, especially fungal infections, including cryptococcal meningitis, candidiasis, and histoplasmosis. More recently, he and his group have concentrated on the emerging toxicities of antiretroviral therapy, especially the metabolic complications seen in patients receiving effective therapy. His group has contributed to available data on insulin resistance, lipid abnormalities, and bone disease. The Washington University Metabolic Group was the first to describe bone disease as a complication of HIV infection, has recently published a more complete study of natural history, and has just completed the first randomized trial of therapy for bone demineralization in HIV disease. Dr. Powderly is an associate editor of AIDS Patient Care and STDs.