Deborah Persaud (born 23 August 1960) is a Guyanese-born American virologist who primarily works on HIV/AIDS at Johns Hopkins Children's Center.
Persaud and her research team found that viremia persists in children with plasma virus remaining at a level under the limit of detection of clinical assays.
[3] When children with HIV-1 receive HAART treatment, the viremia that is difficult to observe is continued virus production without resistance in the protease gene.
[4] Persaud's research team tried to find a novel culture assay that can stimulate the virus production during their latent, integrated HIV-1 in resting CD4+ T cells with the antiretroviral drugs.
After that, she suggested the induction therapy by using protease-inhibitors has influenced the effect of NNRTI (non-Nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors) resistance on virologic response to nevirapine-based HAART in children patients of HIV.
[6] In 2013 Persaud worked as part of a team who showed that a baby had been cured of HIV by giving it anti-HIV drugs; she won the Elizabeth Glaser Scientist Award and was featured in Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in 2013.