Dr. Nasheed Moqueet

Post-doctoral Fellow

Nasheed has a Masters in Public Health from John Hopkins University and a PhD in Epidemiology from McGill University. Nasheed’s training has allowed her to explore infectious diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis C at a range of scales. She has looked at HIV at the molecular level in the lab; at the clinical level when studying liver disease progression in the context of treatment and clinical decision-making; and, more recently, at the level of population health.

Working With: Sharmistha Mishra  and Ann Burchell

Contact Nasheed at: MoqueetN@smh.ca

What did you do for your PhD? I studied genetic and immune markers that are associated with responses to the Hepatitis C virus in people who have both HIV-Hep C co-infection. For example, one marker can help predict the ability of an individual to ‘clear’ a Hep C infection without treatment. This same marker can also mean that Hep C, if it persists, can lead to higher inflammation and a higher chance of liver failure. In the later stages of my research, I looked at whether or not it would be useful for clinicians to do genetic and immunological testing and use that information for treatment-related decisions. We found that having this genetic and immunological testing on hand does improve clinical prediction to some degree.

What are you doing at C-UHS? With the introduction of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a medication that can help reduce the transmission of HIV, the landscape of sexually transmitted disease transmission is changing rapidly in cities like Toronto. As people begin making different decisions about sex due to PrEP, I wanted to look at what happens to sexual and other Hep C transmission at the population level. To do this, I’m learning more about mathematical modelling techniques, which allows us to test hypothetical ‘what if’ scenarios and understand how individual and population-level variables can interact to produce population health outcomes. C-UHS is such an exciting place for me, mainly due to its inter-disciplinary environment. There’s research, but there’s also an intersection with policy. That’s been very informative for me in terms of determining next steps in my career and research.

What would you like to see happen? I want my fellowship findings to be useful to decision-makers in terms of targeting better Hep C prevention and treatment strategies. More generally, I would like to see higher access and uptake of Hep C treatment – up until very recently, treatment was so expensive that uptake was low, even in contexts where there is public health care.

PUBLICATIONS

Thavorn K, Kugathasan H, Tan DHS, Moqueet N, Baral SD, Skidmore B, MacFadden D, Simkin A, Mishra S. Economic evaluation of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis strategies: Protocol for a methodological systematic review and quantitative synthesis. Systematic Reviews. 2018 Mar 15;7(1):47.

Moqueet N, Kanagaratham C, Gill MJ, Hull M, Walmsley S, Radzioch D, Saeed S, Platt RW, Klein MB; Canadian Co-infection Cohort. A Prognostic Model for Development of Significant Liver Fibrosis in HIV-Hepatitis C Co-Infection. PLoS One. 2017 May 3;12(5).

Moqueet N, Cooper C, Gill J, Hull M, Platt RW, Klein MB; Canadian Co-infection Cohort. Responder Interferon Lambda genotypes are associated with higher risk of liver fibrosis in HIV-Hepatitis C Virus Co-infection. J Infect Dis. 2016 Mar 16.

Moqueet N, Infante-Rivard C, Platt RW, Young J, Cooper C, Hull M, Walmsley S, Klein MB. Favourable IFNL3 genotypes are associated with spontaneous clearance and are differentially distributed in Aboriginals in Canadian HIV-hepatitis C co-infected individuals. Int J Mol Sci. 2015 Mar 20;16(3):6496-512.

Kijak GH, Beyrer C, Tovanabutra S, Sripaipan T, Suriyanon V, Moqueet N, Sanders-Buell E, Saokhieo P, et al. Socio-demographic and drug use factors associated with HIV-1 recombinants and dual infections in Northern Thai drug users: associations of risk with genetic complexity. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2011 Jul 1; 116(1-3):24-30

Koehler RN, Walsh AM, Moqueet N, Currier JR, Eller MA, Eller LA, Wabwire-Mangen F, Michael NL, Robb ML, McCutchan FE, Kijak GH. High-throughput genotyping of KIR2DL2/L3, KIR3DL1/S1, and their HLA class I ligands using real-time PCR. Tissue Antigens. 2009 Jul;74(1):73-80

Kijak G, Walsh A, Koehler R, Moqueet N, Eller LA, Eller M, Currier JR, Wabmire-Mangen F, Kibuuka H, Michael N, Robb ML, McCutchan FE. HLA Class I Allele and Haplotype Diversity in Ugandans Supports Presence of a Major East African Genetic Cluster. Tissue Antigens. 2009 Mar;73(3):262-9

Pruitt N, Moqueet N, Shapiro CA. Evidence for a novel cryoprotective protein from freeze-tolerant larvae of the goldenrod gall fly Eurosta solidaginis. Cryobiology.2006 Dec 27

AWARDS AND HONOURS

2018 CAHR 2018 New Investigator Award in Epidemiology and Public Health Sciences, Canadian Conference on HIV/AIDS Research (CAHR), Vancouver, Canada

2017-2019 CTN Postdoctoral Fellowship Award, CIHR Canadian HIV Trials Network (CTN)