Krista Dong, MD, is an infectious disease physician, translational and implementation scientist with expertise in design of robust, patient-centered HIV cure and prevention research protocols. Dong is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a core member of the Ragon Institute of Mass General, MIT and Harvard. She began working in sub-Saharan Africa in 1995, and in South Africa since 2001. She is a passionate advocate for equitable enrollment in HIV cure research and trials globally. In 2012, she established the Females Rising through Education, Support and Health (FRESH) Acute HIV cohort in Durban South Africa, enrolling adolescent girls and young women at extraordinarily high-risk of HIV acquisition and performing frequent HIV-RNA monitoring to detect acute HIV-infection at the earliest timepoints to enable study of the first immunological responses and viral dynamics. Unique to the design of FRESH is that all study participants are co-enrolled in an empowerment and poverty-alleviation program with classes that coincide with the frequent study visits. The FRESH site team works closely with investigators, participants and the community to ensure each step of the iterative research design process keeps participants at the core of the effort, to inform current and future protocols and interventions. Under Dong's leadership, FRESH has expanded to become an active clinical trial site optimized for early-phase studies to test novel interventions for HIV prevention and cure.
