Dr. Natasha Rybak is currently an Assistant Professor of Medicine within the Division of Infectious Disease with a research concentration in pediatric HIV/TB and MDR-TB management. Over the past nine years she has been working with collaborators in the Ukraine and the U.S. to build the Brown University Ukraine Collaboration, which focuses on strengthening research capacity in the areas of TB and HIV. Dr. Rybak has long-standing ties to the Ukraine from the time she participated in a Rotary Youth Exchange in 1993-94 and has been traveling to the region for over twenty years since then. This has allowed the team to build strong collaborative relationships in the Ukraine with a deep cultural understanding of the complexities facing this vulnerable post-Soviet nation.
Dr. Rybak is currently the co-founder and co-director of the Brown University Ukraine Collaboration. She has worked with colleagues at Brown University, including Dr. Timothy Flanigan to develop a team that includes cooperation between researchers in the US; at Brown University, Boston University, Harvard University and the University of California, San Diego. In Ukraine, the academic partnership includes the Bogomolets National Medical University, led by the Director of the Department of Tuberculosis, Dr. Vasyl Petrenko. This collaborative work has led to multiple publications and abstracts presented at international conferences.
The Brown University Ukraine Collaboration team has been working on projects to evaluate risk factors for poor outcomes among MDR-TB patients. The team is also in the process of evaluating the results of a qualitative study of TB patients to assess patient perceived barriers to TB care. Additionally, the team recently received funding from the Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) developmental award to further characterize the gap in pediatric TB notification through autopsy review along with collaborators from Boston University; Dr. Helen Jenkins and Dr. C. Robert Horsburgh and Dr. Silvia Chiang from Brown University. Dr. Rybak has also received the Rhode Island Foundation award to evaluate new TB diagnostics for pediatric TB in Ukraine.
Dr. Rybak has strong clinical training in both HIV and TB management. She completed four years of combined adult and pediatric infectious disease fellowship and currently serves as the Medical Director of the RISE TB Clinic, which provides care for the majority of active TB cases in the state of Rhode Island. She also maintains an HIV clinic at The Miriam Hospital Immunology Center that focuses on HIV care for young adults with perinatal HIV infection. She has also recently started a non-tuberculosis mycobacteria clinic that is focused on treating complicated non-tuberculosis infections including skin and soft tissue infections, post-surgical complications from mycobacteria.
Keywords: Tuberculosis (TB), Multi-drug resistant (MDR-TB) , Eastern Europe, non-tuberculosis mycobacterial infections, HIV
Key Publications:
Novitsky V, Gilbert P, Peter T, McLane MF, Gaolekwe S, Rybak N, Thior I, Ndung’u T, Marlink R, Lee TH, Essex M. Association between virus-specific T-cell responses and plasma viral load in human immunodeficiency virus type 1 subtype C infection. J of Virology. 2003 Jan;77(2):882-90.
Novitsky VA, Gilbert PB, Shea K, McLane MF, Rybak N, Klein I, Thior I, Ndung’u T, Lee TH, Essex ME. Interactive association of proviral load and IFN-gamma-secreting T cell responses in HIV-1C infection. Virology. 2006 May 25;349(1):142-55.
Rybak N, Koster M, Gilbert EB, Flanigan T. Building international collaborations from the ground up: Brown University partnerships in Haiti and Ukraine. R I Med J (2013). 2013 Apr 1;96(4):33-7.
Rybak N, Carroll JJ, Bachmaha M, Garcia A, Vasylev M, Flanigan T and Sluzhynska M. (2015) HIV Testing and Entry into HIV Care in Lviv, Western Ukraine 2005-2013. J AIDS Clin Res 6:494.doi:10.4172/2155-6113.1000494.
Aibana O, Bachmaha M, Krasiuk V, Rybak N, Flanigan TP, Petrenko V, Murray MB. Risk factors for poor multidrug-resistant tuberculosis treatment outcomes in Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine. BMC Infect Dis 2017; Feb 7;17(1):129, doi: 10.1186/s12879-017-2230-2, PMID: 28173763.
Harausz EP, Garcia-Prats AJ, Law S, Schaaf HS, Kredo T, Seddon JA, Menzies D, Turkova A, Achar J, Amanullah F, Barry P, Becerra M, Chan ED, Chan PC, Ioana Chiotan D, Crossa A, Drobac PC, Fairlie L, Falzon D, Flood J, Gegia M, Hicks RM, Isaakidis P, Kadri SM, Kampmann B, Madhi SA, Marais E, Mariandyshev A, Méndez-EchevarrÃa A, Moore BK, Nargiza P, Ozere I, Padayatchi N, Ur-Rehman S, Rybak N, Santiago-Garcia B, Shah NS, Sharma S, Shim TS, Skrahina A, Soriano-Arandes A, van den Boom M, van der Werf MJ, van der Werf TS, Williams B, Yablokova E, Yim JJ, Furin J, Hesseling AC. Treatment and outcomes in children with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis: A systematic review and individual patient data meta-analysis. PLoS Med. 2018 Jul; 15(7):e1002591. PMID: 29995958.
Contact Information:
Division of Infectious Diseases
1125 North Main Street
Providence, RI 02904
Phone: 401-793-2928
Fax: 401-793-7401
Email: nrybak@lifespan.org
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