Robert Demling, MD - Chair

Robert H. Demling, MD, Marquette Medical School, 1969. Completed his surgical and research training at the University of California, San Francisco, in 1974 (Cardiovascular Research). Since 1976, he has held a variety of academic appointments, beginning with The University of Wisconsin and the University of California. Clinical Interests: Burns, Pathophysiology of Post - Traumatic Pulmonary Edema, Prostaglandins and Other Mediators of Microvascular Injury.

He is a past president of the American Burn Association. He has researched extensively in the field of the inflammatory and metabolic response from burn injury and on the post burn wound healing. During his distinguished career, he has published over 200 articles, predominantly in the areas of acute respiratory disease, the catabolic state, burns and wound healing. Currently he is Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Burn-Trauma Center and Surgical Intensive Care Unit at the Brigham & Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.

Donald Kotler, MD

Donald P. Kotler, MD is an investigator in the fields of nutritional and gastrointestinal disease. A pioneer in the study of the AIDS wasting syndrome, Dr. Kotler has concentrated on the study of body composition in order to define the characteristics of malnutrition in HIV infection and other diseases, as well as strategies to reverse the wasting process. He has been the Principal investigator on single site and mult-center studies of nutritional therapies for HIV-associated malnutrition. In addition, Dr. Kotler has studied the opportunistic enteric complications of AIDS as well as the role of HIV as an enteric pathogen.

More recently, he has studied the body composition adn metabolic abnormalities, termed lipodystrophy, that occur in HIV-infected patients on highly active antiretroviral therapy, and is applying his knowledge and laboratory techniques to the study of chronic liver disease. Dr. Kotler has worked collaboratively with a number of investigators at the National Institutes of Health and other research organizations. He has served as a mentor for three doctoral candidates and many GI fellows. He has worked with several national and international groups including the International AIDS Society-USA, NIH Office of AIDS Research Planning Committees, the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care and others. He is Vice President of the Board of Directors of ACRIA, a Trustee of the Royal S. Marks Foundation, a member of the Board of Directors of the National Center for the Study of Wilson's Disease, and a member of the Medical Advisory Board of the Wilson's Disease Association of America.

Christine Wanke, MD

Christine Wanke, MD, is a Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases at Tufts New England Medical Center and the Director of HIV Clinical Research for the Division of Geographic Medicine and Infectious Diseases. She is also Professor and the Director of the Division of Nutrition and Infection in the Department of Public Health at Tufts University School of Medicine, for which she serves as Associate Chair. She also holds appointments in the School of Nutrition at Tufts and at the School of Veterinary Medicine.

Dr. Wanke’s research interests are in the nutritional and metabolic complications of HIV infection and its therapy, including the risk for cardiovascular disease in HIV infection. Her research is supported by the NIH in the form of an R01 and a Midcareer Award in Clinical Research.  She sits on the AIDS Clinical Epidemiology Study Section for the NIH. She is the core director for GI, Nutrition and Metabolism Core for the Brown-Tufts Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) and director of the metabolic core for the Tufts Center for AIDS and Drug Abuse (CDAAR). She is the PI of the clinical HIV training grant at Tufts-New England Medical Center and is actively engaged in mentoring fellows and graduate students in clinical research in HIV. Dr. Wanke also has research interests in intestinal function and persistent diarrheal disease in HIV infection and in children in the developing world.

Dr. Wanke is a member of the executive committee for the Brown Tufts Fogarty training program in HIV in Asia and has participated in international research projects on diarrheal disease and/or HIV since the early 1980’s. Her international work has included projects in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, Thailand, India and Vietnam.  Dr. Wanke did her Geographic Medicine and Infectious Disease fellowship at the University of Virginia and was on the faculty at Harvard Medical School from 1987-1998. She has been at Tufts University School of Medicine since 1998. She has published over 120 articles in peer reviewed journals; is an Associate Editor of Clinical Infectious Diseases.