Study Team
University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)
Joel Palefsky, M.D
PI, Protocol Chair
Dr. Joel Palefsky is the Chair of the HPV Working Group of the AMC and is the head of the AMC HPV Virology Core Lab. He has extensive experience in studying the biology of HPV infection, HPV infection in HIV-positive men and women, HPV vaccines and in the design and implementation of clinical research trials of HPV-related disease. He has published over 250 papers and is the PI on several laboratory-based and clinical research studies of HPV-associated neoplasia, particularly in the setting of HIV infection. Anal dysplasia occurs in men and women and is especially common among patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). He also specializes in the biology and development of new treatments for HPV and Epstein-Barr virus. He is the founder and president of the International Anal Neoplasia Society and President-elect of the International Human Papillomavirus Society. Dr. Palefsky plays an active role in promoting student research programs at UCSF, advising, and recruiting students supervising their research and providing active career guidance. He has won numerous student teaching awards.
Katherine Van Loon, MD, MPH
Dr. Katherine Van Loon is a specialist in gastrointestinal cancers, with a particular interest in colon cancer.
With a background in public health, Van Loon's research is focused on epidemiology – the study of which populations develop diseases and which factors contribute – as well as outcomes in gastrointestinal malignancies. She has a long-standing interest in global health and has also studied the epidemiology of gastrointestinal cancers in the developing world.
Van Loon earned her master's degree in public health from the Yale School of Public Health before attending the Medical College of Georgia. She completed a residency in internal medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. She came to UCSF for a fellowship in oncology in 2009.
Van Loon is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). She received a Young Investigator Award from the ASCO Conquer Cancer Foundation in 2012.
Teresa M. Darragh, M.D.
Professor of Clinical Pathology
Teresa Darragh, MD is a Professor of Clinical Pathology in the Departments of Pathology and Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. She is board certified in Anatomic Pathology and Cytopathology and was an attending colposcopist in UCSF’s Dysplasia Clinic for 25 years.
She is Past President of the American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology (ASCCP) and co-chaired the LAST Project on standardizing terminology for HPV-associated squamous lesions of the lower anogenital tract.
Dr. Darragh’s primary clinical and research interests are focused on HPV-associated anogenital tract disease. She is the central pathology reviewer for the NCI’s studies in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, for ANCHOR, the anal cancer study, and is a member of the Central Coordinating Group for WHO/IARC’s ESTAMPA project.
Li Zhang, PhD
Professor of Department Medicine and Department of Epidemiology
Li Zhang, Ph.D., is a Professor of Department Medicine and Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and an associate member and principal statistician of UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center (HDFCCC). She obtained her Ph.D. in Statistics from University of Florida in 2006. She received pre-doctoral training from Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics at NIH/NCI. Before she joined UCSF in 2013, she was an Assistant Professor at Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University since 2006.
Dr. Zhang has over fifteen years of experience in applying statistical method in biomedical research including basic science studies, epidemiology studies, clinical research. Her statistical methodological research interests are cancer epidemiology and immunoinformatics. She received multiple research rewards as a principal investigator (PI) and co-Investigator (Co-I), for example, she received UCSF Global Oncology Pilot Project Award on Genome Wide Association Study (GWAS) of Esophageal Cancer in Tanzania and recently received her second UCSF Research Allocation Program Award of Using Machine Learning to Better Characterize and Understand the Clinical Prognostic Features and Landscape of Immunosequencing. She has more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and has been listed on more than 30 federal or foundation grants as a statistician or Co-I.
In addition, Dr. Zhang has been serving to multiple professional organizations. She has served on American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Career Development Award Review Committee as a statistical reviewer and NIH/NCI BMRD Study Section. Currently, she serves on Global Action Plan 6 Project Steering Committee and UCSCF site PI for Movember Foundation and associate editor in Frontiers Genetics. She is also the President of San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of American Statistical Association.
George F. Sawaya, M.D.
Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology, Reproductive Sciences, Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Dr. Sawaya is Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences and Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He is a practicing generalist obstetrician-gynecologist and is Director of the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital Colposcopy Clinic and the Dysplasia Clinic at UCSF. He is a member of the UCSF Academy of Medical Educators and serves as Director of the UCSF Center for Healthcare Value. He has served as an invited expert concerning matters related to cervical cancer screening to CDC and the American Cancer Society. He is a former member of the US Preventive Services Task Force. He has an NCI-funded research program with a focus on determining economically and patient-centered cervical cancer screening strategies for average-risk, immune-compromised and HPV-vaccinated women.
Dr. Mirabel Gomez, MD
Co-Investigator
Dr. Tirado Gomez is an Assistant Professor and the Program Director of the Hematology and Medical Oncology Fellowship at the UPR School of Medicine and UPRCCC. She is currently the medical director of the Anal Neoplasia Clinic and a PI of the Puerto Rico AMC and ANCHOR Study. For this project, she will perform the high resolution anoscopy evaluations and support the treatment of high-grade anal lesions among HIV positive individuals that participate in the study.
University of Puerto Rico (UPR)
Ana Patricia Ortiz, PhD, MPH
Protocol Principal Investigator
Dr. Ortiz is the site PI for the CAMPO study in Puerto Rico. She completed an MPH and a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Dr. Ortiz has over 17 years of experience in cancer prevention and control research focused on HPV, HIV and women’s health. She is an investigator of the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences of the University of Puerto Rico Comprehensive Cancer Center and Ad-honorem Professor of the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Graduate School of Public, University of Puerto Rico. She has over 150 scientific publications in peer reviewer journals and has ample experience in mentorship of students and junior investigators in cancer research.
Among several other active research projects, she is a researcher at the Puerto Rico site of the NCI funded AIDS Malignancy Consortium (2UM1CA121947) and of the ANCHOR: Anal Cancer/ HSIL Outcomes Research Study (U01CA121947). She is also Multiple-PI of The University of Puerto Rico/University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC) Partnership for Excellence in Cancer Research grant (2U54CA096297), as well as Program Director and multiple PI of an R25 focused on recruiting graduate students to participate in a hands-on mentored research experience in cancer prevention and control (R25CA240120). She is also an Expert Member of the Infections and Vaccination Working Group, within the Latin America and the Caribbean Code Against Cancer, of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
Erick Suárez, PhD, MS
Biostatistician
Dr. Suárez obtained his doctoral degree at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He has published more than 80 scientific articles and has co-authored 4 books on Biostatistics. He has collaborated in different research projects funded by the National Research Institutes (NIH) mainly related to cancer, HIV / AIDS, HCV and HPV. Dr. Suárez is the co-leader of the Data Management and Statistics Core in Puerto Rico. He supervises all the activities related with the core and assist the CAMPO Consortium investigators in designing databases, development of statistical analyses, implementation of the quality control program of the database, and monitoring the recruitment process. He will also provide support of data description, data processing, data analysis, results interpretation, and manuscript preparation.
Josefina Romaguera, MD
Ob-gyn
Dr. Romaguera is a Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the UPR School of Medicine, Medical Sciences Campus and a Consultant for the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at San Juan City Hospital. She oversees the colposcopy clinics for UPR. In her roles at the UPR School of Medicine, she has mentored hundreds of undergraduate, graduate, medical and post-doctorate students in their research related to women’s health including the topic of gynecological cancer prevention and control. Her research interests include gynecologic cancers, HPV, and HPV vaccinations, with current projects related to the role of HPV progression biomarkers, the role of microbiota in the progression of HPV cervical pathology, and the role of a therapeutic HPV vaccine for cervical and vulvar HPV-related pre-malignant conditions. Dr. Romaguera oversees the gynecologic clinical component as a clinical investigator in the CAMPO project.
Filipa Godoy-Vitorino, PhD
Microbiome / Puerto Rico Site Core Lab Leader
Dr. Godoy is the Chair of the Department of Microbiology and Medical Zoology, of the School of Medicine, Medical Sciences Campus, University of Puerto Rico. Dr. Godoy has developed her career studying biodiversity associated with animal and human microbiomes using and developing metagenomic techniques. Her research is at the frontier of Microbial Ecology with Physiology, Metagenomics and Bioinformatics. After her NSF-funded postdoc studying with metagenomics an herbivorous bird -Hoatzin- at the DOE-JGI, she founded her first Microbial Ecology laboratory in Puerto Rico in 2012. In 2018 she joined the UPR School of Medicine and established the Microbiome Lab where she uses multi-omic approaches to study evolutionary dynamics of human infectious diseases. Her laboratory is dedicated to the study of host-microbial symbioses in diverse systems, characterizing microbiomes to understand the co-evolution, transmission and functions of microbial-host symbioses. Her main focus is on microbiome-driven malignancies, especially related to HPV-related cervical dysbiosis for which she has pioneer studies in Hispanics. Within CAMPO, Dr. Godoy is the leader of the Laboratory Core in Puerto Rico. As part of CAMPO, Dr. Godoy also supports a supplement focused on elucidating the role of the anal microbiome as a contributor to the increased risk of anal cancer risk in persons living with HIV (3U54CA242646-02S1), as part of a Global Cancer Health Disparities Supplement.
Vivian Colon-López, PhD
Epidemiologist
Dr. Colon-Lopez is a Professor in the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences at UPRCCC. She received her MPH in Epidemiological Sciences from the University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus and her Ph.D in Epidemiology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is the PI of an R01 grant focused on implementation of school-entry policies for HPV vaccination in Puerto Rico (R01CA232743). Within CAMPO, Dr. Colón-López will oversee the overall execution of outreach, recruitment, and retention efforts in Puerto Rico.
Marievelisse Soto-Salgado, PhD
Epidemiologist
Dr. Soto is an Assistant Investigator in the area of Epidemiology at the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, University of Puerto Rico (UPR) Comprehensive Cancer Center, and an Adjunct Professor at the UPR Graduate School of Public Health. Dr. Soto has a master in Sciences (MSc) in Epidemiology and a DrPH with Specialty in Social Determinants of Health from the UPR Graduate School of Public Health. She was awarded a Diversity Supplement (NCI grant # 3U54CA096297-17S1) at the UPR/MDACC Partnership for Excellence in Cancer Research where she is working in developing and evaluating (determine the performance characteristics and validate) a risk assessment tool for the detection of anal HSIL/HSIL+ among persons living with HIV. In addition, this supplement will support her training in anal and cervical cancer screening and predictive modelling, and in her development as an independent cancer researcher. Dr. Soto is also a mentor at the Cancer Prevention and Control (CAPAC) Research Training Program (NCI grant # 5R25CA240120-02) at the UPRCCC. Dr. Soto has a strong research interest in cancer health disparities and infection (HIV/AIDS, HPV, Hepatitis C and H pylori) which has been documented in 49 peer-reviewed publications (5 first author and 46 co-author) in these areas. As a junior investigator on CAMPO, she supports development of data collection instruments, outreach and recruitment efforts. In addition, Dr. Soto will collaborate in the interpretation of study results and manuscript preparation. Her involvement in the program also includes participation in the proposed training and mentorship activities.
Sharee Umpierre Catinchi, MD
Ob-gyn
Dr. Umpierre is a Professor at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine. She is a gynecologic oncologist with more than 20 years of clinical experience in gynecologic malignancies in the Hispanic population of Puerto Rico. She is a Co-PI in the National Cancer Institute Community Oncology Research Program in the area of gynecologic oncology and is the Director of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at UPRCCC. She has mentored many students and trainees in gynecology oncology, and her research focuses on malignancies that primarily affect Hispanic women, including cervical cancer. For the proposed program, she will perform gynecologic procedures.
Josué Pérez-Santiago, MD
Bioinformatics
Dr. Pérez-Santiago is an Assistant Professor of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics at UPRCCC. His work focuses on genomics and microbionomics, with specific research interest in investigating the human microbe interaction in HIV and cancer. For this project, he will support the Data Management and Statistical Core. Specifically, he will be responsible for generating the microbiota profiles, the microbial diversity calculations and taxonomic analyses. In addition, Dr. Pérez-Santiago will collaborate in the dataset preparation for data analysis, interpretation of microbiota profiles and manuscript preparation. As a young investigator, he will be part of the training and career development program. As part of CAMPO, Dr. Pérez-Santiago also supports a supplement focused on elucidating the role of the anal microbiome as a contributor to the increased risk of anal cancer risk in persons living with HIV (3U54CA242646-02S1), as part of a Global Cancer Health Disparities Supplement.
Miriam Matos, MD
Ob-gyn
Dr. Matos is an obstetrics and gynecology specialist at the University of Puerto Rico. She has participated in numerous investigations related to HIV with organizations such as the Center for Maternal-Infant Investigations (CEMI) and the NeuroAIDS Research Program. She will perform cervical and anal cancer screening and treatment for participants in the Clinical Trials Program.
Sandra García Camacho, MPH
Biostatistician
Ms. Garcia is a biostatistician who graduated from the University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus. She is CAMPO’s lead clinical research coordinator. Sandra has experience leading, coordinating and supporting research related to healthcare of patients with anal and/or gynecological cancers. She has had multiple publications and has participated in workshops, conferences and courses related to research coordination.
Vanessa Gómez Vargas, MS
Epidemiologist
Ms. Gómez graduated from the University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus with a master’s degree in science with a specialization in epidemiology. She is CAMPO field study coordinator and works in recruitment and retention, networking, and coordinating logistics. Ms. Gómez has had experience coordinating and leading studies related to the microbiome, health care in patients with gynecological cancer and HIV/HCV co-infection. She has had multiple presentations and has published her work.
Tania de Jesús Espinosa, MSN-RN
Registered Nurse
Ms. De Jesús graduated from the University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus with a masters in nursing sciences. She is the CAMPO clinical research coordinator and will be assisting clinical staff during cervical and anal cancer screening as well as coordinating the study’s clinical logistics. Ms. De Jesus is also a certified nurse and has focused her career in clinical care and health education. She has experience in qualitative research related to PLWH experience after a catastrophic climatic event and her work has been published.
Frances E. Vazquez Sanchez, MS
Microbiologist
Frances has a master’s degree of Molecular Microbiology in Molecular Diagnosis from the Inter American University of Puerto Rico. She has had research experience in microbial analysis and analysis of microbiomes. Her last research project aimed to assess the microbiota associated to penile cancer and specific bacteria associated to HPV status, tumor differentiation, tumor stage and histology grade. She has had multiple publications along with Dr. Ortiz and Dr. Godoy-Vitorino. Frances will be CAMPO’s laboratory coordinator.
José Torres, MD, MPH
Physician
Dr. Torres Russe obtained his medical degree from the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara, México. He also obtained a master’s degree in Public Health with a major in Epidemiology from the University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus. He has treated patients at outpatient level as well as in the ER settings in multiple clinics and hospitals in PR for over 15 years. Under the sponsorship of the AIDS Education & Training Center Program Northeast/Caribbean Region, he had the opportunity of doing a preceptorship in HIV/AIDS, developing special research interest in this population. He has been granted a Diversity Supplement (3 U54 CA242646-02S2) through which he is being trained in high-resolution anoscopy and HIV-related malignancies, and executing a research project among CAMPO participants focused on barriers and facilitators to cervical cancer screening in women living with HIV.