The CCASAnet team in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is led by Dr. Pedro Cahn and colleagues at the Huesped Foundation. Dr. Cahn has been at the forefront of HIV care and research in Argentina since the beginning of the epidemic and has published extensively on related topics. He and his colleagues have studied HIV in the context of co-infection with hepatitis B and C, Helicobacter pylori, and diarrheal pathogens. His multi-site collaborations include large ART trials and studies of HIV-1 subtype and diversity.

The Huesped Foundation is a non-governmental, non-profit organization that is among the best-known programs in HIV prevention and care for people living with HIV/AIDS in Argentina. The Huesped Foundation aims to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS in the community, improve the availability of social and health care services for people living with HIV/AIDS and their families, support continual training of health and social professionals, and promote clinical research. The Foundation's nationwide outreach programs target HIV care, prevention, and education, and all its services are provided free of charge.

The CCASAnet collaboration in Brazil is led by Dr. Mauro Schechter and his colleagues at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, leaders in the field of HIV/AIDS research and care since the beginning of the Brazilian epidemic. Their research areas include HIV treatment and complications, coinfections of HIV with HTLV-1, STIs and tuberculosis, post-sexual exposure prophylaxis, and HIV vaccine preparedness.

Research activities conducted under Dr. Schechter are known under the umbrella name of Projeto Praça Onze. The project is located at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro's Hospital Escola São Francisco de Assis, and actively works to control of the Brazilian HIV epidemic. To this end, activities at this site include participation in vaccine development efforts and in clinical trials to develop better treatment and prevention for HIV infection and opportunistic diseases related to HIV/AIDS, and studies to test interventions to prevent the transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.

Since its inception in 1994, Projeto Praça Onze has been committed to developing the necessary infrastructure, including human and material resources, to enable it to take an active role in the design and conduct of epidemiologic studies and clinical trials. This includes the availability of a core group of highly trained and committed professionals with expertise in several key areas, and the existence of community education, recruitment, and retention plans to support trial participation.

Since 1996, antiretroviral therapy has been offered free of charge to all individuals who qualify for treatment according to Brazilian national guidelines. Over 160,000 patients currently receive antiretrovirals under this program.

Dr. Marcelo José Wolff Reyes and his colleagues at the University of Chile School of Medicine lead the CCASAnet team in Chile. They have been involved in long-standing AIDS cohort studies, such as the Chilean AIDS Cohort (ChiAC), large multicenter therapeutic clinical trials, and multiple independent clinical trials. Dr. Wolff also has been instrumental in formulating the national clinical care guidelines for treatment of people living with HIV/AIDS in Chile.

The Chilean project site is the Arriaran Foundation, the largest public AIDS care center for adults in Chile. directed by Dr. Reyes. The center, located within the San Borja Arriaran Hospital, is directed by Dr. Reyes and provides care for all HIV patients from the region covered by the hospital. The Arriaran Foundation's research unit has substantial research experience and is responsible for multiple clinical publications on HIV. The team has also participated in international cooperative clinical trials for HIV therapy and general infectious disease therapy according to GCP guidelines. There is growing involvement in research activities sponsored by academic international groups rather than pharmaceutical companies, including strategic initiatives in HIV disease management such as the SMART study (Strategies for the Management of Anti-Retroviral Therapy).

The CCASAnet collaborating team in Haiti is lead by Dr. Jean Pape and colleagues of the GHESKIO Centers. Created in 1982, GHESKIO is the oldest non-governmental organization working in HIV/AIDS care and research in the world. GHESKIO has three missions: operational research, patient care, and training. The group, in collaboration with Cornell and Vanderbilt Universities, has been conducting HIV adult and pediatric clinical and vaccine studies for over the past twenty years from a single research site located in Port-au-Prince.

Despite ongoing political turmoil and deteriorating economic conditions, GHESKIO continues to provide uninterrupted care and training and to conduct translational research. GHESKIO was instrumental in establishing the Haitian National AIDS Commission in 1985. In 1987, GHESKIO was recognized as an official non-governmental organization (NGO) by the Haitian government and was conferred the status of a "Public Utility," a designation reserved for institutions which are essential to the "welfare of the Haitian people," such at the Haitian Red Cross.

The CCASAnet team in Peru is headed by Dr. Eduardo Gotuzzo , a professor at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia School of Medicine in Lima. Dr. Gotuzzo is also the director of the "Alexander von Humboldt" Tropical Medicine Institute, a prominent infectious diseases clinical facility in Peru and a leading research institution in Latin America. Dr. Gotuzzo is a former president of the International Society of Infectious Diseases and currently chairs the society's Emerging Diseases working group. Additionally, he is a member of board in the "Forum on Microbial Threats" of the U.S. Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies.

Dr. Gotuzzo's HIV expertise dates back to 1985 when the first cases of HIV in Peru were diagnosed at the Humbolt Tropical Medicine Institute. Since then, Dr. Gotuzzo has personally treated thousands of HIV patients and conducted 10 clinical trials on patients with HIV between 1998 and 2005. Currently, he is the Principal Investigator of the UPCH ICOHRTA HIV/TB program in Peru and has received funding from the Belgian Cooperation to evaluate an HIV prevention program, establish an HIV/AIDS cohort study, and implement an HIV immunology and molecular epidemiology laboratory at the Alexander von Humboldt Tropical Medicine Institute.

The CCASAnet coordinating center is located at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. The project is headed by Dr. Daniel Masys, who is also responsible for coordinating the project's research activities, working with co-Principal Investigator Mauro Schechter and the other site leaders listed above. Other members of CCASAnet's Vanderbilt team are supported by the university's School of Medicine and Department of Biomedical Informatics.

Dr. Masys, the CCASAnet Principal Investigator, served as the leader for the data management groups of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) HIV Neurobehavioral Research Center, AntiViral Research Center and UCSD Center for AIDS Research, while serving as Director of Biomedical Informatics within the Dean's Office, UCSD School of Medicine. He is currently the chair of Vanderbilt's Department of Biomedical Informatics, a program widely regarded as one of the top NIH-sponsored biomedical informatics training and research departments in the country.