Georgetown Awarded NIH Grant to Continue Leadership in National HIV Aging Study
Media Contact
Karen Teber, km463@georgetown.edu
WASHINGTON (August 6, 2026) — Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center have received a National Institutes of Health grant to continue leading the Washington, D.C., site of the MACS/WIHS Combined Cohort Study (MWCCS), one of the nation’s largest and longest-running observational studies of the health of people living with HIV.
Seble Kassaye, MD
“Thanks to remarkable advances in HIV treatment, people with HIV are living longer than ever before. But they continue to face higher rates of heart disease, cancer, neurocognitive disorders, and other chronic conditions as they age,” says Georgetown School of Medicine infectious disease professor Seble Kassaye, MD, principal investigator (PI) of the Washington, D.C., site of the MWCCS. “Throughout the MWCCS, we’re working to understand the biological mechanisms behind these increased risks and identify new ways to help people with HIV live longer, healthier lives.”
The Georgetown-led D.C. site has successfully enrolled new participants while maintaining exceptionally strong engagement, with a 97% participant retention rate. During the new award period, investigators will continue collecting clinical data and biological samples to address high-priority research questions, while collaborating with researchers across the national MWCCS network.
Dan Merenstein, MD
“Because the study also includes participants without HIV, the team’s discoveries have the potential to advance the understanding of aging and chronic disease more broadly,” says co-principal investigator Dan Merenstein, MD, a family medicine professor at Georgetown University’s School of Medicine and professor of human science at the School of Health.
For this new grant, research conducted by the Georgetown team will explore how HIV affects health across the lifespan, including studies of immune function, the microbiome, cardiovascular disease, metabolic health, neurocognitive decline, hearing and balance disorders, cancer screening, and strategies to improve prevention and treatment of chronic diseases. Investigators will also apply innovative bioinformatics and artificial intelligence approaches to better understand how HIV and related conditions evolve over time.
The MWCCS follows more than 5,000 participants across multiple U.S. clinical research sites and provides one of the world’s most comprehensive longitudinal resources for understanding HIV and healthy aging.
This work is supported by a grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, a part of the National Institutes of Health (grant #2U01HL146205).
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