Expert Biographies

Dr. Oliver Bacon, an infectious disease specialist at UCSF Medical Center and the San Francisco VA Medical Center, cares for patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) at the UCSF Positive Health Practice. Bacon's clinical interests include general internal medicine, infectious disease, and HIV. In addition to caring for patients, he is pursuing research on the detection of early HIV infection in San Francisco and Brazil, on ways to incorporate HIV prevention into medical care, and on the use of Web-based clinical vignettes to evaluate training needs of HIV providers in resource-limited settings. Bacon also is a clinical instructor at UCSF, as well as Medical Director of the UCSF Center for HIV Information.

Dr. Bacon earned his medical degree from Yale University in New Haven, Conn., and completed an internal medicine residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Md. He went on to complete a graduate degree in public health at the University of California at Berkeley in 2001 as well as an infectious disease fellowship at UCSF in 2002.

Dr. Rena Fox is an Assistant Clinical Professor in Medicine in General Internal Medicine at UCSF Medical Center. She is in the Division of General Internal Medicine and has a special interest in hepatitis C and viral hepatitis. She performs research into hepatitis C at the San Francisco VA Medical Center. She cares for patients with hepatitis B and C at the Viral Hepatitis Practice at UCSF Medical Center. She is a member of the VA National Hepatitis C Resource Center in San Francisco, focusing on developing tools for primary care doctors to learn how to care for patients with hepatitis C and ways to improve hepatitis C care at VA sites around the country. She also serves as Medical Editor of the National VA Hepatitis C Website. Additionally, she has an active primary care practice and teaches clinical internal medicine to residents at the UCSF Medical Center.

She received her bachelor's degree in Human Biology from Stanford University and then attended medical school at the University of California, San Diego. She performed her internal medicine internship and residency at the University of Washington in Seattle. She went on to a Clinician-Educator Fellowship in General Internal Medicine at UCSF in 2001 and has been on the faculty since that time.

Dr. Alex Monto, a liver specialist at UCSF Medical Center and the San Francisco VA Medical Center, cares for patients with all types of liver disease, but specializes in hepatitis C. In addition to caring for patients, he performs research into why some patients with hepatitis C have worse liver disease than others and how the hepatitis C and HIV viruses interact. He also serves as Medical Editor of the National VA Hepatitis C Web site, as well as being involved in improving hepatitis C care within the VA nationally as an Associate Director of the VA National Hepatitis C Resource Center in San Francisco. Dr. Monto is also Assistant Clinical Professor in Medicine at UCSF.

He attended medical school at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City, and received internal medicine training at Columbia and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He completed Gastroenterology fellowship training at UCSF in 2001, and has been on the faculty since that time.

Dr. Peiperl is the former director of the UCSF Center for HIV Information at the San Francisco VA. He has authored print and online reviews on a variety of topics in HIV/AIDS, and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes. He is active in HIV vaccine research and in clinical education. A graduate of the UCSF School of Medicine and residency program in internal medicine, he has been working in HIV research, care, and education for the past 20 years.

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