Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Meet Coco Alinsug, A Friendly Rectal Microbicide Advocate

Check out this interesting mini-bio of  Coco Alinsug, the latest in IRMA's "Meet a Friendly Rectal Microbicide Advocate" series on the IRMA website here.  Coco is one of five new bios posted this week.


  
Coco Alinsung
Boston, Massachusettes, USA

A native of the Philippines and a resident of Lynn, Massachusetts with his partner, Coco Alinsug has made a lifelong commitment to devote his time and energy to social justice, HIV/AIDS prevention, and issues facing LGBT youth.

Coco started his career as an HIV Counselor and Tester at the Gay and Bi Men's Health Program in Beverly, MA and later was appointed as the Executive Director of the North Shore Alliance on GLBT Youth which is funded by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to provide HIV/STI education to youth 14-24 years old - a position he has held for eight years.

Currently Coco works as the Clinical Trials Field Recruitment Manager at The Fenway Institute where he has been for nearly seven years. It was in this role that Coco first came into contact with rectal microbicide advocacy as he was tasked with recruitment for all clinical trials, including the rectal microbicide study called Project Gel.

In his role at Fenway, Coco oversees outreach and recruitment for research studies looking at everything from possible HIV vaccines to microbicides to the use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to prevent HIV transmission. Coco and his team travel around New England, educating people about HIV and STD transmission and safer sex practices while also recruiting potential study participants.

Coco is also Chair for Community Education and Recruitment group for both HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) and HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) and sits as a member of the protocol team for two studies, HVTN505 and HPTN069. Coco also is a consultant for various HIV and STD Outreach Programs both in the North Shore and Boston, and sometimes organizes and hosts shows in several clubs.

Coco would also like to encourage IRMA to keep up the good work and always stay fabulous.

Thank you for all your work Coco, and you stay fabulous too!


------------------- *Join IRMA's robust, highly-active. moderated, global listserv addressing rectal microbicide research and advocacy as well as other interesting new HIV prevention technologies by contacting us at rectalmicro@gmail.com. Joining our listserv automatically makes you a member of IRMA - a network of more than 1,100 advocates, scientists, policy makers and funders from all over the world.

*Please look for us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/InternationalRectalMicrobicideAdvocates, and you can follow us on Twitter: @rectalmicro.

*Also, please note that shared news items from other sources posted on this blog do not necessarily mean IRMA has taken any position on the article's content. -------------------

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