Neetal Nevrekar, MBBS

Dr. Neetal Nevrekar is a Clinical Coordinator at the John Hopkins Center for Infectious Diseases in India (CIDI) and the Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Government Medical College Clinical Research Site (BJGMC-CRS), based in Pune, India.  She is a gynecologist by training with over 20 years of clinical experience. Her research interests are women’s health, pregnant and postpartum women living with HIV, and treatment and prevention of HIV-TB co-infection. Dr. Nevrekar joined the BJGMC-JHU CRS in June 2010 and is currently the clinical coordinator in the NIH-funded ACTG and IMPAACT network clinical trials which include a large multicenter MDR-TB preventive study- A5300B/I2003/PHOENIx, A5362-CLO-FAST study- DS-TB treatment shortening trial, and IMPAACT 2026, a Pharmacokinetic study for ART and Anti-TB drugs in pregnant and postpartum women living with HIV.

In her present role, she coordinates the clinical and study-related activities for these studies at the site. These activities involve developing the source documents for research protocols, screening and enrolling the research participants, completing clinical record forms, ensuring that the study procedures are conducted in accordance with the study protocol and as per the SOP and HSP-GCP guidelines, training research staff and CAB members, reporting to the regulatory bodies at the site. She is also responsible for communicating with the Clinical Managing Committee (CMC) of respective studies, CRS leadership, study laboratories, and BJGMC faculty regarding the clinical issues and expedited adverse event reporting to RSC/DAIDS. She has worked in different capacities including as Research Officer and Study Clinician on the network research protocols including A5207, A5253, A5225, 1077BF, and 1077FF (PROMISE), A5274, A5282, A5288, A5302, and P1078. She has also conducted the ACTG-TBTC collaborative A5349/ S31 study of treatment shortening for drug-sensitive (DS)-TB at the BJGMC site.

She received an undergraduate degree from Grant Medical Institute, Mumbai, and a Doctor of Medicine in Obstetrics and Gynecology from Grant Medical Institute and Bombay Hospital Research Centre. She has also obtained the Diplomat of National Board (DNB) degree from New Delhi. She worked as a senior medical officer at Bombay Hospital-Medical Research Centre for four years. Subsequently, she was a consultant in Obstetrics and Gynecology at various private hospitals for six years before joining the CRS.

She has served as a member of the Women’s Health Inter-Network Scientific Committee (WHISC) for the IMPAACT and ACTG Network 2012- 2014. Presently, she is a member of the Women’s Health Collaborative Science Group (WHCSG) at the ACTG Network. She has attended the annual IMPAACT network meetings in Washington, DC, in 2011, 2017, and 2019. She has also attended the Women in Global Health Research Symposium at Weil Cornell Center for Global Health in 2016.

Dr. Nevrekar was selected for the Partnerships for Enhanced Education in Research (PEER) Women in Science Mentorship Program under the mentorship of Dr. Nishi Suryavanshi. She has completed the one-year PEER Mentorship Program which was supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in 2021. As a part of the program, she submitted a pilot project on understanding the barriers and facilitators in the tuberculosis prevention care cascade for optimizing isoniazid preventive therapy uptake among adults living with HIV in India and applied for the seed grant funding. The research project was reviewed, selected, and funded by the USAID.