Dr Peter Saxton The New Zealand AIDS Foundation believes the move of one of its key researchers to a role at the University of Otago will greatly increase the potential resources that can be brought to bear on domestic HIV research. Dr Peter Saxton has taken up a post doctoral fellowship at the university, which has a long-term partnership with the NZAF. Otago University houses the AIDS Epidemiology Group and has collaborated on the Gay Auckland Periodic Sex Survey and Gay Online Sex Survey. Dr Saxton will continue to work on topics relating to HIV and gay and bi communities in New Zealand. The move comes as the researcher has Dr Saxton's paper Increase in HIV diagnoses among men who have sex with men in New Zealand from a stable low period has been published NZAF Executive Director Shaun Robinson says the Foundation is very pleased to congratulate Dr Saxton on both his new position and on the publication of his first paper in a peer‐reviewed journal. "Moving to Otago University, means that he now has access to university resources like the skills of postgraduate students working on HIV‐related topics. This is a considerable maturation and strengthening of both the NZAF's partnership with the University of Otago and the HIV research sector in New Zealand as a whole," he says. Robinson says that the HIV research sector in New Zealand remains under‐resourced. "At the moment there are two full‐time HIV researchers in New Zealand another four or five who work part time, compared to more than two hundred full‐ and part‐time researchers in Australia. We are very hopeful that the university will be able to facilitate more high quality research into HIV, which is vital to combating the epidemic." Dr Saxton's paper can be found here
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Tuesday, 23rd August 2011 - 10:09am