|
"The practice of health, which is broader
than medicine, allows one to do good for others, to see the
world, [and] to
sharpen the mind." Dr
Farley Cleghorn
Dr
Farley Cleghorn is an international expert on
HIV/AIDS and infectious diseases. His work has focused on
the origin, incidence and distribution of HIV/AIDS, clinical
vaccine trails, antiretroviral treatment, the examination of the
HIV virus structure, and how HIV infection progresses into AIDS.
He has made many original contributions to the field of human
retrovirology in the area of HIV-1 and was an early pioneer in
the management of HIV/AIDS patients in the Caribbean.
Farley Richard Cleghorn
was born on 15th July, 1959 in San Fernando, Trinidad. He
attended Grant Memorial School and then Presentation College,
San Fernando. He taught for a year at the San Fernando
Technical Institute and, despite his love for literature and the
arts, he applied to study medicine at the Faculty of Medicine of
The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, Jamaica, and
graduated in 1982.
He had an early
interest in retroviruses and was instrumental in opening, in
1986, Trinidad's first clinic for HIV/AIDS, in partnership with
Professor Courtenay Bartholomew. This work eventually
led to a fellowship at the National Cancer Institute in the
United States and, in 1992, a Master of Public Health in
epidemiology and biostatistics at the School of Hygiene and
Public Health, Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, USA.
Dr Cleghorn held
several positions at the University of Maryland including
Assistant Professor, Deputy Director, and Senior Scientist in
the university's Institute of Human Virology, directed by Dr
Robert Gallo, one of the world's leading biomedical researchers
and the co-discoverer of HIV. During his tenure from 1995
to 2004, he built the Division of Epidemiology and Prevention
and its research programme became one of recognised excellence.
Currently, he is the
Senior Vice President and Chief Technical Officer of the Futures
Group International LLC, Washington, DC. Futures Group
International, formerly known as Constella Futures, has over 30
country offices worldwide and has a strong presence in India,
Africa, Asia, Latin America and the
Caribbean, supporting HIV/AIDS research, public health and
social programmes. He is also working with the Institute
of Human Virology, the Medical Research Foundation of Trinidad
 and
Tobago, and UWI on joint HIV/AIDS research in the region.
In addition, he is involved in providing training to health
professionals in the US, Caribbean, Brazil and Nigeria who are
working in the area of HIV/AIDS.
Among the awards he has
received are the Institute of Caribbean Studies' first award in
Medicine in 1993, and the Charles C Shepard Award in 1998 for
outstanding contribution to HIV/AIDS research from the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2004, Dr Cleghorn
was honoured by the HIV Vaccine Trials Network for "vaccine
research and innovative and creative contributions."
Dr Farley Cleghorn
lives by the words of Thomas Paine, "Independence is my
happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to
place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to
do good."
|
