In 2011, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provided funding to create the Consortium for the Evaluation and Performance of HIV Incidence Assays (CEPHIA) to create a consolidated repository of over 30,000 well-characterized plasma specimens from around the world, and conduct independent evaluations of existing and new HIV incidence assays to allow for the objective comparison of the products available on the market.
Dr. Facente served as the project manager for CEPHIA for more than a decade, and along with colleagues at Vitalant Research Institute (VRI), Public Health England, and the South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis (SACEMA) was responsible for coordination of submission of physical specimens and associated data from international cohorts to the repository location at VRI. She has also worked closely with epidemiologists and statisticians in South Africa to create a data system for the repository and develop new methods for estimating dates of detectable HIV infection among individuals within large research cohorts or small clinical care sites.