Biography

Akaki Abutidze graduated from Tbilisi State Medical University in 2005 with MD degree. In 2010 he was awarded a U.S. National Institutes of Health Fogarty International Center scholarship and completed a two-year Master of Public Health degree program at the Emory University, Atlanta, USA. Dr. Abutidze received his PhD degree in Infectious Diseases at Tbilisi State University in 2016. Currently Dr. Abutidze holds the position of deputy director for research at the T. Tsertsvadze Infectious Diseases, AIDS and Clinical Immunology Research Center in Tbilisi, Georgia, which is country’s leading institution in the field of HIV, viral hepatitis and other infectious diseases. He has been actively involved in the development and implementation of Georgia’s national HIV/AIDS treatment and care program, national hepatitis C elimination program and hepatitis B treatment program and serves as a member of scientific committees of these initiatives. He is a member of the country coordinating mechanism for the Global Fund project to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. Dr. Abutidze has over 20 years of experience in HIV, TB, HCV and HBV research leading national cohort studies within several international collaborations. He has published extensively in peer-reviewed literature.