Dr. Anjali Sharma

My research focuses on metabolic complications of HIV infection associated with aging, particularly among women. My current NIH K23 funded research investigates underlying mechanisms of bone loss and the relationship between disorders of bone and fat metabolism in HIV infection, in an effort to explain the high prevalence of premature bone disease in HIV-infected women in the Women's Interagency HIV Study (WIHS), the largest and longest-running cohort study of HIV infection in women in the United States. I joined the Einstein faculty in 2013 to build on existing collaborations with expert HIV researchers, and more importantly, to develop new collaborations with scientific experts investigating aging, and conditions associated with aging that are prevalent in HIV-infected populations. I recently found that HIV-infected women had greater fracture incidence than uninfected women in WIHS, prompting an investigation into the prevalence and risks for falls in the WIHS. We found that 18% of HIV+ women reported at least one fall within 6 months, and that factors affecting cognition (such as subjective cognitive complaints and CNS active medications) were associated with greater falls risk. Among HIV-infected women age 50 or older, 1/3 reported having a fall annually, similar to the falls incidence in persons age >65 years in the general U.S. population. Additionally, I am conducting research on  visceral adiposity and age-related metabolic disorders among HIV-infected women, in  a project that utilizes two novel imaging techniques to quantify visceral adiposity and skeletal microarchitecture in aging HIV-infected and uninfected women, to assess the relationships between visceral adiposity and metabolic disorders associated with aging (osteoporosis, sarcopenia, and subclinical atherosclerosis) in HIV-infected women. Prior to joining Einstein faculty, I was awarded a grant to study factors associated with bone loss among women and men with and at-risk for HIV infection, from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Physician Faculty Scholars Program, as well as an AIDS-Science Track Award for Research Transition (R03) by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, to study the role of insulin-like growth factor in the development of reduced bone mineral density in two large cohorts of drug using men and women with and at-risk for HIV infection. Additional areas of research interest includethe effects of regional adiposity and obesity on health in HIV-infected populations.

Her clinical expertise encompasses HIV/AIDS.

She is actively involved in clinical research, co-authoring 2 peer reviewed articles.