PhD Scholarship - Melbourne Sexual Health Centre

Job No.: 625130

Location: Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, 580 Swanston Street, Carlton

Employment Type: Full-time

Duration: 3-year fixed-term appointment

Remuneration: The successful applicant will receive a tax-free stipend, at current value of $29,500 per annum 2021 full-time rate, as per the Monash Research Training Program (RTP) Stipend www.monash.edu/study/fees-scholarships/scholarships/find-a-scholarship/research-training-program-scholarship#scholarship-details

• Be inspired, every day
• Drive your own learning at one of the world’s top 80 universities
• Take your career in exciting, rewarding directions

The Opportunity:

HIV is a significant issue in Australia but elimination is possible. There is hope that HIV elimination is possible with reports of declining incidence in Australia, London, and San Francisco.(1-3)

There are inequities in our HIV response. Like many high-income countries, HIV in Australia is largely concentrated in men who have sex with men (MSM). Australian born MSM have reduced HIV incidence since 2014 but we are not seeing the same declines in HIV incidence among overseas born MSM.

HIV elimination will only be possible if HIV prevention is available to all MSM. HIV transmission can be essentially prevented if MSM are tested frequently and new infections are rapidly treated so they become non-infectious (termed Treatment as Prevention, TasP)(4) and HIV-negative MSM take daily HIV preventive treatment called pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to stay HIV-negative.(5) If these powerful interventions are not implemented broadly (i.e. including overseas born MSM) then they will fail.

Projects available:

1) Systematic literature review to understand decision-making for HIV testing and access to HIV prevention among overseas born MSM.

2) Crowdsourcing challenge contest to enhance HIV prevention among overseas born MSM

3) Discrete choice experiments to determine preferences for the crowdsourced solution among overseas born MSM

4) Clinical trial and economic evaluation

References:

1. University of New South Wales. HIV, viral hepatitis and sexually transmitted infections in Australia: Annual Surveillance Report 2018 [Available from: https://kirby.unsw.edu.au/report-type/annual-surveillance-reports.

2. Nwokolo N, Hill A, McOwan A, Pozniak A. Rapidly declining HIV infection in MSM in central London. Lancet HIV. 2017;4(11):e482-e3.

3. Scheer S, Hsu L, Schwarcz S, Pipkin S, Havlir D, Buchbinder S, et al. Trends in the San Francisco Human Immunodeficiency Virus Epidemic in the "Getting to Zero" Era. Clin Infect Dis. 2018;66(7):1027-34.

4. Cohen MS, Chen YQ, McCauley M, Gamble T, Hosseinipour MC, Kumarasamy N, et al. Prevention of HIV-1 infection with early antiretroviral therapy. N Engl J Med. 2011;365(6):493-505.

5. Grant RM, Lama JR, Anderson PL, McMahan V, Liu AY, Vargas L, et al. Preexposure chemoprophylaxis for HIV prevention in men who have sex with men. N Engl J Med. 2010;363(27):2587-99.

Selection criteria:

Minimum entry requirements can be found here: www.monash.edu/admissions/entry-requirements/minimum.

If this sounds like a position that suits your current career focus we look forward to hearing from you.

At Monash University, we are committed to being a Child Safe organisation. Some positions at the University will require the incumbent to hold a valid Working with Children Check. 

How to apply

For general instructions on how to apply for roles at Monash, please refer to "How to apply for Monash Jobs ".

Please email your application to Dr Jason Ong, [email protected]

Closing Date

Thursday 30 November 2021, 11:55pm AEDT

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