AIDS @ 30
Thirty years after the AIDS epidemic was discovered, the Hutchinson Center is home to one of the world's largest HIV research units, staffed by experts who share a passion for defeating the disease. From our Seattle headquarters to our research outpost in Uganda, our scientists and staff are making discoveries that provide building blocks for potential HIV drugs, and spearheading an effort to develop a safe and effective HIV vaccine.
In the following vignettes, members of our HIV team deliver a portrait of life and hope on the AIDS battle's front lines and explain why their groundbreaking research could someday conquer the disease.
Related links:
View the presentation 'Thirty Years of HIV/AIDS: A Personal Journey' by Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Related news:
Thirty years of fighting AIDS: A progress report
Wall Street Journal, June 18, 2011
Op-ed by Dr. Larry Corey, Center president and director
Reprinted with permission of The Wall Street Journal Copyright (c) 2011 Dow Jones & Company. All rights reserved.
Seattle's Julie McElrath leading in the search for an effective AIDS vaccine
Humanosphere, June 6, 2011
Interview with Dr. Julie McElrath of the Center's Vaccine and Infectious Diseases Division
AIDS at 30 - Interview with Dr. Larry Corey
KUOW-FM's "Weekday" (Seattle NPR), June 3, 2011
Dr. Lawrence Corey, president and director of the Hutchinson Center, is interviewed about the search for an HIV vaccine
Seattle's HIV Vaccine Trials Unit works towards finding a vaccine for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Julie Overbaugh, Ph.D.
Member, Human Biology Division
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Some of the Kenyan physicians who came through our training program are now leaders in HIV research in Africa, and they are doing things and contributing in ways that I never could. I feel incredibly fortunate to collaborate with these outstanding scientists and to learn from my Kenyan colleagues and trainees.
Renee Holt
Regulatory Affairs Manager
HIV Vaccine Trials Network Core
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
O.K. - I confess - I love standard operating procedures or SOPs. My interest in the HIV Vaccine Trials Network is in helping staff at clinical trial sites better understand the regulatory environment, including problem solving with sites on how to meet the requirements in their unique settings.
Michael Emerman, Ph.D.
Member, Human Biology Division
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Some of my research is in understanding how the virus gets around the defenses that are supposed to stop it. Humans, like other primates, have a powerful system of antiviral defenses. However, HIV can counteract some of the key ones using proteins that can disable the defenses.
Ultimately we want to understand why our defenses are the way they are, and why they do or don't work against HIV. This has led us to the idea that ancient viruses of human ancestors have had a powerful effect on our current susceptibility to modern viruses like HIV.
Harmit Malik, Ph.D.
Member, Basic Sciences Division
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
When we think about deadly viruses, we need to understand that their complexity and ferocity has been bred through tens of millions of years of tugging and pulling against the human race. Our research has yielded important insights into the evolutionary struggle between viruses and humans. Ultimately, we hope this research may lead to new drugs to fight HIV.
J. Lee Nelson, M.D.
Member, Clinical Research Division
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Some cells are exchanged between a mother and fetus during pregnancy. A small number of exchanged cells persist in the other person decades later. This phenomenon is referred to as microchimerism. Maternal cells often persist in her children into adult life, even in healthy individuals, and is referred to as maternal microchimerism.
The T lymphocyte plays a key role in immune responses and in immune responses to foreign cells. Maternal microchimerism is usually half genetically different from the other cells of her children. A hallmark of HIV and AIDS is deficiency in CD4+ T lymphocytes. We are interested to know whether patients with HIV have altered maternal microchimerism levels and whether there is a correlation with progression or non-progression to AIDS.
Jeffrey Schouten, MD
HANC Director
Office of HIV/AIDS Network Coordination
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
I have been involved in HIV clinical research and care for more than 15 years. As Director of the HIV/AIDS Network Coordination Project I enjoy providing leadership and strategic direction for all of the cross-network coordination activities that the HANC project encompasses. We coordinate activities across laboratories, statistical and data management centers, evaluation, training, community, communications, the Legacy Project and behavioral sciences. I have the opportunity to work closely with the Network Leaders of the six NIAID HIV/AIDS Clinical Trials Networks and DAIDS to develop and implement strategies to coordinate activities and optimize collaboration between the networks and DAIDS and other funding and operational partners. It is very stimulating working across the DAIDS prevention and therapeutic research spectrum.
Holly E. Janes
Associate Member, Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
I am passionate to be part of the community of researchers focused on developing an effective AIDS vaccine. My dream is that our work will help to end the devastation the disease is wreaking upon children, families, and communities.
Youyi Fong
Assistant Member
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
I'm here because vaccines are an urgent problem, so there are a lot of people working on them, and we all see a need for developing better statistical methods. Statistical methods for vaccines are not that different from methods in cancer, for example. These models can be applied in multiple fields. Here, vaccines are the driver for the statistical methods.
Jason Stucky
Research Technician
HIV Vaccine Trials Network Lab Program
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
After losing many friends to HIV/AIDS I got involved in HIV/AIDS research by becoming a counselor in a clinical HIV/AIDS prevention trial. Fours years later I became a lab technician working on HIV vaccine research. Although many challenges are ahead of us in developing a vaccine, I am hopeful as I see so many innovative ideas and unique approaches to this problem. I feel proud to work as a small cog in a much larger collaborative effort toward a common purpose of one day living in a world without HIV/AIDS.
Maria Lemos, Ph.D.
Associate Member
Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
I see an HIV vaccine as a great opportunity to improve equity. A vaccine would give those at risk of infection a better chance to live healthier and more productive lives. As many circles of HIV transmission are plagued with social, political and/or economic neglect, a vaccine is an empowering opportunity for these communities to drive their own change.
Richard Newman
Research Operations Manager
UCI/Hutchinson Center Cancer Alliance
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
At the time I graduated high school the conventional wisdom was that those at highest risk for acquiring HIV, such as men who have sex with men, either already had HIV or would get it soon enough and those not already sick would soon be dying. Miraculously, by the time I graduated college antiretroviral therapy had swept across the developed world and many of those patients near death were transformed into people learning to live with AIDS. But as I entered the work force, it was clear that effective means of preventing HIV infection were still lacking and, worse, the medications were way too expensive for most of the world. Since dedicating my professional life to supporting prevention research, I have observed a number of potentially viable prevention modalities emerge as well as more affordable medication for those already infected. Whether these can be implemented and sustained on par with a vaccine, however, is unknown. Therefore, a vaccine still holds the greatest promise.
Steve Wakefield
Director, External Relations
HIV Vaccine Trials Network Core
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
The virus was winning and destroyed life as I knew it. New studies RV144, Caprissa 004, HPTN 052 prove that the same perseverance in research that unleashed 30 HIV treatments can prevent new infections. The ultimate weapon against HIV will be a vaccine.
Josh Barnes, ARNP
Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner
Seattle HIV Vaccine Trials Unit
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
When I was kid coming to terms with my sexual identity in the South, I started volunteering in HIV programs. I thought that all gay men would eventually have AIDS. I was young; I was wrong. Nearly two decades later, I'm a Nurse Practitioner and HIV Specialist; I've worked in HIV treatment and hospice care, I've even volunteered in an HIV vaccine trial. Now, I work in HIV Vaccine Research. I believe in my community. And, I believe that one day we will have a world without AIDS.
Ro Yoon
Community Educator
Seattle HIV Vaccine Trials Unit
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
I am proud to be part of something that I am so passionate about. As community educator for HIV Vaccine Trials Unit, I engage with every community to ensure that a vaccine that will work for all of us. How will the world change when we discover a vaccine?
Devin Adams
Research Technician
HIV Vaccine Trials Network Lab Program
Later this year I will celebrate my 30th birthday. It is sobering to know that the fight against AIDS has spanned my entire lifetime. My life may have begun in the era of HIV/AIDS, but I am hopeful that the work being conducted at the Hutch will one day allow us all to witness the end to this chapter of human suffering.
Deborah Donnell, Ph.D.
Principal Staff Scientist
SCHARP, Vaccine and Infectious Disease Institute
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
I have worked in clinical trials for HIV prevention for almost 20 years. We had some exciting early success with stopping HIV between infected mothers and their babies. But since then there have been times when HIV prevention in adults seemed beyond our reach.
Then last month, when our trial results showed that early HIV treatment prevented transmissions to sexual partners, when I heard we had only had one infection after starting early treatment, compared to 27 without treatment, I had hope again. Hope that we can beat this virus, someday soon.
Corey Casper, M.D.
Associate Member, Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
The HIV epidemic actually was first recognized 30 years ago when a cluster of cancers (Kaposi sarcoma) was observed among young men in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. In the subsequent years, it was learned that the risk of cancer in persons with HIV was up to 4,000-fold higher than the general population, and that many of these cancers were attributable to viral infections (human herpesvirus 8, Epstein Barr Virus, human papillomavirus, and hepatitis B and C viruses). Today, the burden of viral-associated cancers among HIV-infected individuals is greatest where the prevalence of HIV is highest - specifically, sub-Saharan Africa. In 2004, we initiated the UCI/Hutchinson Center Cancer Alliance, a unique collaboration between the Hutchinson Center and the Uganda Cancer Institute. UCI/Hutchinson Center Cancer Alliance seeks to ease the burden of the nearly 25% of cancers worldwide that are caused by chronic infection through research, training and clinical care.
Damon Humes
Community Engagement Officer
HIV/AIDS Network Coordination Legacy Project
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
HIV is a pandemic that affects us all whether we know it or not; and there is still NO cure. Therefore, we have got to find cutting-edge approaches that will prevent HIV such as an effective vaccine. I urge everyone to learn more about vaccines to determine if being in a study is right for you.
Jim Kublin
Executive Director
HIV Vaccine Trials Network Core
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
I am working on the development of HIV vaccines that could be used to prevent individuals from getting infected with HIV and that could ultimately be used to stop this pandemic. I have also worked on how other infections, such as malaria, activate the immune system of people infected with HIV and increases their risks for both HIV and malaria. This interaction is one example of how controlling one infection may help control other infections.
Ruanne Barnabas, MBChB, D.Phil.
Associate Member
Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Working as a junior doctor in South Africa was really eye opening because I saw many of the complications of HIV for the first time. It was a formative experience because you think there's something that you must be able to do to stop people from getting infected in the first place. It certainly made its stamp early on - that this was a field that I wanted to be active in and do research in.
Shelly Karuna, M.D.
Staff Physician, HVTN Core
Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
My career took a big shift when I went from general surgery training to being a clinical trial physician for the HVTN; but I have long held an interest in HIV/AIDS. As early as my high school years I worked as an HIV educator in my home state of Louisiana. I then continued my connection with AIDS research and with people living with AIDS during my undergraduate studies at Duke University in North Carolina: volunteering at a hospice for AIDS patients and working in the Duke infectious diseases clinic and health policy department. I then moved to San Francisco where, before starting medical school, I worked as a clinic coordinator for a study run by the AIDS Clinical Trial Group at UC San Francisco.
From Louisiana to North Carolina and even in San Francisco, I was floored by the range and strength of discrimination against people with HIV. Yet I was inspired by the heart of the people facing that discrimination. I was also intrigued by the intellectual conundrum of HIV, and engaged by the open-minded, creative, and focused thought that seemed to be required to better understand the many facets of this disease. I was excited about the prospect of being able to combine something that was so intellectually stimulating with work on behalf of people who might benefit from another impassioned advocate.
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