Monica Gandhi, MD, MPH
Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of HIV/AIDS
Research Interests
Dr. Gandhi’s research efforts have largely been conducted in the Women's Interagency HIV Study, a large multisite, prospective cohort study established in 1994 to study the natural history, clinical and laboratory findings of HIV in women. Her particular research focus is exploring novel methods to assess antiretroviral (ARV) exposure in chronically infected HIV patients such as the determination of ARV levels in small hair samples. As the concentration of drugs in hair reflects uptake from the systemic circulation over an extended time window (weeks to months), hair analysis provides an integrated measure of exposure to these medications over time. Dr. Gandhi's work has demonstrated that hair concentrations of protease inhibitors (PIs) and nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs) are the strongest independent predictor of virologic success in participants in the WIHS over time. In models, hair levels of drug are stronger independent predictors of success on therapy than self-reported adherence, age, race, starting viral load and CD4 cell count, and degree of prior ARV experience. Hair concentration measurements have been used biomarker for adherence and exposure in a variety of research settings beyond the WIHS over the past few years, including sampling hair from HIV-infected children in Uganda, pregnant women in South Africa, and pregnant women and their babies in a Ugandan cohort. Gandhi and colleagues have also measured hair levels of tenofovir in various pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) trials since these levels may be particularly important to monitor in HIV-negative individuals where HIV viral loads cannot be used as surrogates of adherence.
Select Publications
| 1) | Gandhi M, Ameli N, Bacchetti P, Gange SJ, Anastos K, Levine A, Hyman CL, Cohen M, Young M, Huang Y, Greenblatt RM. Protease Inhibitor Levels in Hair Samples Strongly Predict Virologic Responses to Treatment. AIDS 2009 Feb 20;23(4):471-478. PMCID: PMC2654235 |
| 2) | Gandhi M, Benet LZ, Bacchetti P, Kalinowski A, Anastos K, Wolfe AR, Young M, Cohen M, Minkoff H, Gange SJ, Greenblatt RM. Nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor pharmacokinetics in a large unselected cohort of HIV-infected women. JAIDS 2009 Apr 15;50(5): 482-491. PMCID: PMC2700138 |
| 3) | Huang Y, Gandhi M, Greenblatt R, Gee W, Lin E, Messenkoff N. Sensitive Analysis of Anti-HIV Drugs, Efavirenz, Lopinavir and Ritonavir, in Human Hair Samples by Liquid Chromatography Coupled with Tandem Mass Spectrometry. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry 2008 Nov;22(21):3401-9. PMCID: PMC2669487 |
| 4) | Gandhi M, Ameli N, Bacchetti P, Sharp GB, French AL, Young M, Gange SJ, Anastos K, Holman S, Levine A, Greenblatt RM. Eligibility criteria for HIV clinical trials and generalizability of results: the gap between published reports and study protocols. AIDS 2005 Nov;19(16):1885-1896 |
| 5) | Gandhi M, Greenblatt RM, Aweeka F, Blaschke T. Sex Differences in Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics. Annuals Review of Pharmacology and Toxicology 2004 Feb;44:499-523 |
| 6) | Gandhi M and RM Greenblatt. Hair it is: the long and short of antiretroviral treatment monitoring [Editorial]. Annals of Internal Medicine 2002 Oct;137(8):696-697 |
| 7) | Merenstein D, Gandhi M, Schwartz R, et al. Association of child care burden and household composition with adherence to Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy in the Women’s Interagency HIV Study. AIDS Patient Care and STDs 2009 Apr;23(4):289-96 |
| 8) | Gandhi M, Benet LZ, Bacchetti P, et al. Nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor pharmacokinetics in a large unselected cohort of HIV-infected women. JAIDS 2009 Apr 15;50(5): 482-491 |
| 9) | Gandhi M, Ameli N, Bacchetti P, et al. Protease Inhibitor Levels in Hair Samples Strongly Predict Virologic Responses to Treatment. AIDS 2009 Feb 20;23(4):471-478 |
| 10) | Wong EB and Gandhi M. The Feminization of an Epidemic: HIV in Women (chapter 37). In Fundamentals of Global HIV Medicine, IHL Press, Temesgen Z, Ed., January 2010 |
| 11) | Gandhi M, Ameli N, Bacchetti P, et al Atazanavir Concentrations in Hair Samples are the Strongest Predictor of Outcomes in HIV Infection. Clinical Infectious Diseases (in press) |
 View PubMed results for Monica Gandhi, MD, MPH |
Education & Training
BS, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1991
MD, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, 1996
Categorical Internal Medicine Residency, University of California, San Francisco, 1996-1999
Fellowship, Infectious Diseases, University of California, San Francisco, 1999-2003
Fellowship, Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, University of California, San Francisco, 2000-2003
Masters in Public Health (Epidemiology and Biostatistics), University of California, Berkeley, 2000-2001
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