At Harvard, he is also the Research and Executive Director of the Harvard School of Public Health AIDS Initiative. He has directed HIV/AIDS–related clinical and laboratory training, infrastructure development and research in Botswana, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, and Thailand since 1985.
Dr. Marlink helped to create the groundbreaking Botswana-Harvard AIDS Institute Partnership for HIV Research and Education, officially established in 1996. Under his direction, the Partnership has launched the KITSO AIDS Training Program, which helps train Botswana’s health care providers to care for those affected by HIV/AIDS, and is now Botswana’s national AIDS training program. Dr. Marlink is also the principal investigator of the Tshepo Study, Botswana’s first large-scale antiretroviral treatment study. Also in Botswana, Dr. Marlink is on the Board of Directors of the African Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Partnerships, a public-private partnership between the Government of Botswana, the Merck Company Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
As a co-investigator in a variety of other clinical studies, Dr. Marlink is involved in examinations related to: the genomic and immuniologic analysis of HIV-1C; the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV during breastfeeding; the cost-effectiveness of health interventions in Africa; and the relationship between African traditional medicine and treatment with antiretroviral medications.
He has authored or co-authored over 75 scientific articles. He has also written a textbook on AIDS, Global AIDS Crisis: a Reference Handbook, and edited another, AIDS in Africa, 2nd Edition.