Dr. Kantor is a physician-scientist. As a researcher he directs the Drug Resistance Laboratory at the Providence-Boston Center for AIDS Research (CFAR), where his lab conducts ….. and co-directs the CFAR Basic Science Core. He has been a member of the ACE (AIDS and Clinical Epidemiology) and the HCCS (HIV comorbidities and clinical studies) NIH study sections, and he is a member of the DHHS Guidelines Panel for HIV Treatment in Adults and Adolescents. Dr. Kantor’s lab is focused on multidisciplinary clinical and basic science research on HIV drug resistance in children, adolescents and adults, HIV treatment monitoring, and HIV transmission through networks. For the past fifteen years, he has been part of national and international collaborations such as ACTG, the WHO HIV Drug Resistance Network, IEDEA and TREAT Asia; and he has been working in and collaborating with investigators in global settings where diverse HIV variants predominate, including Kenya, Ghana, Cape Verde, India, Thailand, China, Brazil and Israel. During the past 14 years, since he was recruited to Brown University, he has been NIH funded and currently is the PI of three R01s. He is also devoted to mentoring, is the current PI of a K24 mentoring award, and has mentored numerous undergraduate students, medical/graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and junior faculty, which served as the basis for their careers. Several current projects in the Kantor lab include: (1) Optimizing HIV treatment monitoring strategies under resource constraints; (2) Failure and drug resistance in Kenyan children; (3) Treatment failure and drug resistance in children and adolescents who are lost to follow up in western Kenya; (4) Drug resistance in HIV-1 subtypes in Brazil; and (5) Real time phylogeny and contact tracing to disrupt HIV transmission.
Keywords: HIV; drug resistance; subtypes; treatment monitoring; transmission networks; bioinformatics; laboratory assays; viral load
Key Publications:
R Kantor, D Katzenstein, B Efron, AP Carvalho, B Wynhoven, M Soares, P Cane, J Clarke, J Snoeck, C Pillay, S Sirivichayakul, K Ariyoshi, A Holguin, P Weidle, H Rudich, R Rodrigues, MB Bouzas, P Cahn, L Brigido, Z Grossman, V Soriano, W Sugiura, P Phanuphak, L Morris, AM Vandamme, J Weber, D Pillay, A Tanuri, R Harrigan, R Camacho, J Schapiro RW Shafer. Impact of HIV-1 subtype and antiretroviral therapy on protease and reverse transcriptase genotypic evolution: results of a global collaboration. PLOS Medicine 2005; 2:e112. PMID 15839752. PMC 1087220.
R Kantor. Impact of HIV-1 pol diversity on drug resistance and its clinical implications. Current Opinion in Infectious Diseases 2006;19:594-606. PMID 17075337.
T Rogo, AK DeLong, P Chan, R Kantor. Antiretroviral Treatment Failure, Drug resistance and Subtype Diversity in the only Pediatric HIV Clinic in Rhode Island. Clinical Infectious Diseases 2015;60:1426-35. PMID 25637585. PMC 4415056.
R Kantor, L Smeaton, S Vardhanabhuti, SE Hudelson, CL Wallis, S Tripathi, MG Morgado, S Saravanan, P Balakrishnan, M Reitsma, K Braun, S Hart, J Mellors, E Halvas, J Hakim, T Flanigan, N Kumarasamy, TB Campbell, SH Eshleman, on behalf of the A5175 Study Team. Pretreatment HIV Drug Resistance and HIV-1 Subtype C Are Independently Associated with Virologic Failure: Results from the Multi-national PEARLS (ACTG A5175) Clinical Trial. Clinical Infectious Diseases 2015;60:1541-9. NCT00084136. PMID 25681380. PMC 4425827.
M Coetzer, L Ledingham, L Diero, E Kemboi, M Orido, R Kantor. Gp41 and Gag amino acids linked to HIV-1 Protease Inhibitor Based 2nd-line Failure in HIV-1 subtype A from Western Kenya. Journal of the International AIDS Society 2017;20: 20:e25024. PMID 29098809. PMC 5810327.
PA Chan, A Huang, AK Delong, JW Hogan, M Salemi, R Kantor. Phylogenetic investigation of a statewide HIV-1 epidemic reveals ongoing and active transmission networks among men who have sex with men. Journal of AIDS 2015;70:428-435. PMID 26258569. PMC 4624575.
K Brooks, L Diero, A Delong, M Balamane, M Reitsma, E Kemboi, M Orido, M Coetzer, J Hogan, R Kantor. Treatment failure and drug resistance in HIV-positive Patients on Tenofovir-Based First-Line Antiretroviral Therapy in western Kenya. Journal of International AIDS Society 2016;19:20798. PMID 27231099. PMC 4882399.
R Reece, M D’Antuono, A Delong, K Tashima, R Kantor. Pre-switch Resistance to Complera and Stribild and its Impact on HIV Virological Outcome. Journal of Clinical Virology 2018;105:11-17. PMC 6054572.
S Saravanan, S Gomathi, S Sivamalar, B Kausalya, P Selvamuthu, K Brooks, N Kumarasamy, P Balakrishnan, SS Solomon, S Solomon, S Cu-Uvin, R Kantor. High Discordance in Blood and Genital Tract HIV-1 Drug Resistance in Indian Women Failing 1st-Line Therapy. Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy 2018;73:2152-2161. PMID 29800305
R Kantor, A DeLong, L Schreier, M Reitsma, E Kemboi, M Orido, S Obonge, R Boinett, M Rono, W Emonyi, N Buziba, L Diero. Second-Line Treatment Failure, Drug Resistance and Resistance Accumulation among HIV-Infected Patients in a Large Treatment Program in Western Kenya. AIDS 2018;32:2485-2496. PMID 30134290.
Contact Information:
Center for AIDS Research
RISE Building, Room 154
The Miriam Hospital
164 Summit Avenue
Providence, RI 02906
Tel: 401-793-4997
Fax: 401-793-4709
Pager: 401-450-4249
Email: rkantor@brown.edu
Additional links of interest: