HIV / AIDS Update: Prevention, Treatment and Beyond

Speakers

Organizers

Jerome Kim, MD

Walter Reed Army Institute of Research

Jerome H. Kim, MD is the Principal Deputy and the Chief, Laboratory of Molecular Virology and Pathogenesis, U.S. Military HIV Research Program (MHRP), Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) in Silver Spring, MD. He also serves as the HIV Vaccines Project Manager for the US Army Medical Materiel Development Activity. Dr. Kim, a Colonel in the United States Army Medical Corps, was the Army’s product manager for the Prime Boost HIV Vaccine Trial (RV144) while serving as the Chief of the Department of Retrovirology, U.S. Army Medical Component at the Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences in Bangkok, Thailand. The RV144 trial provided the first demonstration that a preventive HIV vaccine was possible. Dr. Kim’s research interests include HIV molecular epidemiology, host genetics, and HIV vaccine development. He graduated from Yale University School of Medicine in 1984 and completed his training in Internal Medicine (1987) and fellowship in Infectious Diseases (1989) at Duke University Medical Center. Additional information on COL Kim and the US Military HIV Research Program is available at www.hivresearch.org.

Yegor Voronin, PhD

Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise

Yegor Voronin is Science Officer at the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise (Enterprise). In this role, he is responsible for the implementation of the vision of the Enterprise through identification, development, and management of Scientific Strategic Plan- related initiatives and activities. Prior to joining the Enterprise, Dr. Voronin did his postdoctoral training with Dr. Michael Emerman and Dr. Julie Overbaugh at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC). For over ten years he has studied HIV and other retroviruses on a variety of different levels, from their potential use as gene therapy vectors at the West Virginia University, to molecular mechanisms of reverse transcription at the National Cancer Institute, to viral population genetics and evolution at the FHCRC. Dr. Voronin holds a master’s degree in molecular biology from Novosibirsk State University in Russia and Ph.D. in biochemistry from West Virginia University.

Jennifer Henry, PhD

The New York Academy of Sciences

Speakers

Dan H. Barouch, MD, PhD

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Dan Barouch received his PhD in immunology from Oxford University and his MD from Harvard Medical School. He is currently Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Chief of the Division of Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and a member of the Steering Committee of the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard. His laboratory focuses on studying the immunology and virology of HIV-1 infection and developing novel vaccine strategies. His laboratory has explored a series of novel vaccine technologies, including adjuvanted DNA vaccines, poxvirus vectors, and alternative serotype adenovirus vectors in both preclinical and clinical studies. In particular, he has advanced a series of novel adenovirus vector-based HIV-1 vaccine candidates from concept and design to preclinical testing to phase 1 clinical trials that are currently underway in both the U.S. and sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Barouch is board certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Disease, and he is highly committed to teaching students, clinical fellows, research fellows, and junior faculty and to providing clinical care to patients with infectious diseases.

Timothy Cardozo, MD, PhD

NYU School of Medicine

Dr. Timothy Cardozo is Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at NYU School of Medicine (NYUSOM). He is an active clinician, educator and computational structural biologist specializing in drug and vaccine design and protein engineering. His leading research project in HIV is immunogen design to exploit hidden conserved, immunogenic epitopes in the sequence variable loops of the HIV virus for vaccine design. At the time the RV144 results were announced in 2009, Dr. Cardozo was the recipient of the only research project grant active in the NIH portfolio targeting V2 loop immunogen design. Because of his diverse background in liberal arts, medicine, biology, surgery, biophysics, chemistry and computer science, Dr. Cardozo was recognized with a 2008 NIH Director's New Innovator Award. In 2010, he was a Young and Early Career Investigator honoree of the Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He has published over 40 papers in bioinformatics, molecular modeling, structural biology, immunology/virology, dermatology, genomics, pharmacology, cell biology, cancer biology and microbiology. At NYUSOM, he serves as Graduate Advisor for the Computational Biology Program and directs a graduate course in drug design. He currently serves on the Young and Early Career Investigator Committee for the Global HIV Enterprise, and is a regular member of the National Library of Medicine Biomedical Library and Informatics Review Committee.

Nicolas Chomont, PhD

Vaccine & Gene Therapy Institute of Florida

Dr. Nicolas Chomont is an Assistant Member at VGTI-Florida since December 2009. He obtained his PhD in Medical Virology at University Paris VI in 2004 where he extensively studied the interactions between HIV and the genital mucosa. He joined Dr Sekaly’s team in Montreal to perform a post-doctoral training from 2004 to 2009. He described for the first time distinct immunological mechanisms that contribute to the persistence of latently infected cells in HIV-infected subjects receiving suppressive HAART. His earlier work unveiled mechanism of HIV-specific CD8 T cell dysfunction driven by PD-1 in chronic HIV infection. He was awarded by the American Foundation for AIDS Research and by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as Principal Investigator to characterize T cell reservoirs and strategies to control them. At VGTI Florida, Dr. Chomont is currently overseeing the studies of 2 post-doctoral scientists to unravel the molecular mechanisms involved in HIV latency, and to develop novel therapeutic strategies aimed at reducing the size of the HIV reservoir.

Donald Forthal, MD

University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine

Donald Forthal is chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and a member of the Center for Virus Research and the Institute of Immunology at the University of California, Irvine. He received an undergraduate degree in linguistics at UCLA and an MD degree at UC Irvine. After residency at UC San Francisco and UCLA/Harbor General, he completed a fellowship in pediatric and adult infectious diseases at LA County/USC Medical Center. He served as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer at the CDC and subsequently served with the WHO in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo before joining the faculty at UC Irvine. Dr. Forthal’s research centers on interactions between the Fc fragment of antibody and Fc receptors.

J. Victor Garcia-Martinez, PhD

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Dr. J. Victor Garcia-Martinez received his PhD in Chemistry from Georgetown University. He received postdoctoral training at the NCI and MIT. He was a Research Associate at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. He was an Assistant and subsequently an Associate Member of St. Jude Children's Research Center and a Professor of Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Dr. Garcia is currently a Professor of Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology in the Center for AIDS Research, Division of Infectious Diseases, School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Throughout his career Dr. Garcia has made seminal contributions to our understanding of HIV pathogenesis in particular to our understanding of the function of Nef, an important determinant of HIV pathogenesis and disease progression. More recently, Dr. Garcia and the members of his group have established an outstanding track record in the development, implementation and use of humanized mice. Since their landmark publication describing the humanized BLT mouse model, it has been widely used to address key questions regarding a variety of aspects of HIV infection, transmission, and prevention.

Nelson L. Michael, MD, PhD

Walter Reed Army Institute of Research

Nelson L. Michael, MD, PhD is the Director of the US Military HIV Research Program (MHRP) at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), an international HIV vaccine research program that successfully integrates HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment. Dr. Michael, a Colonel in the United States Army Medical Corps, entered his Army service in 1989 in WRAIR's Department of Vaccine Research, Division of Retrovirology, and later served as the Chief, Department of Molecular Diagnostics and Pathogenesis. Dr. Michael was appointed Director of MHRP in January 2006, and guided MHRP through the completion of the RV144 HIV prime-boost vaccine study. This clinical trial, an international collaboration that involved more than 16,000 Thai volunteers, provided the world’s first demonstration that a preventive HIV vaccine was possible. Dr. Michael's research interests include HIV molecular pathogenesis and host genetics, HIV clinical research, and HIV vaccine development. He is an Associate Professor of Medicine, Uniformed Services University and is a Diplomat, American Board of Internal Medicine. He serves as a peer reviewer of many scientific journals and is author, coauthor of more than 130 scientific publications, and eight textbooks. Honors include Army Commendation Medal (1992, 1996), Army Achievement Medal (1996), and Army Meritorious Service Medal (2004, 2010). Dr. Michael currently serves on President Obama’s Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, the Vaccine Research Center Scientific Advisory Working Group (NIAID, NIH), Office of AIDS Research Advisory Committee (NIH), AIDS Research Advisory Committee (NIAID, NIH), AIDS Vaccine Research Working Group (DAIDS, NIAID, and NIH), Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology Scientific Advisory Board, Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator Scientific Steering Committee, the Scientific Committee of the Global HIV AIDS Vaccine Enterprise and the PEPFAR Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Michael graduated summa cum laude from University of California, Los Angeles in 1979 with a degree in biology and from Stanford University with MD and PhD (cancer biology) degrees in 1986. He trained in internal medicine at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital from 1986-1989.

Christopher J. Miller, DVM, PhD

University of California, Davis

Christopher J. Miller, DVM, PhD is a Professor of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology in the School of Veterinary Medicine and an Adjunct Professor of Medicine in the School of Medicine. Dr Miller is a veterinarian and virologist, a core faculty member of the Center for Comparative Medicine and a Staff Scientist at the California National Primate Research Center. His laboratory utilizes non-human primate models of AIDS and influenza A virus infection to define the pathogenesis of these viral infections, study the nature of protective antiviral immunity, and test vaccines and immunotherapeutic strategies to prevent AIDS and influenza.

Alan M. Schultz, PhD

NIAID, NIH

Dr. Schultz is a virologist with a long research history in retroviruses. He received an undergraduate degree in Chemistry from the University of Rochester, a PhD in Biology from the Johns Hopkins University, and later worked in Dr. Robert Gallo's laboratory, where he was introduced to the field of retrovirology. In an 11 year stint at the Frederick Cancer R&D center, working in the Stephen Oroszlan laboratory, which discovered the retroviral protease, did the first amino acid sequence from an HIV protein (then known as HTLV-III), and defined N-terminal myristylation of the gag polyprotein, Dr. Schultz made many contributions to the biochemistry of the life cycle of the family Retroviridae, working with retroviruses from mice, cats, cows, monkeys and humans. He then joined the fledgling AIDS Program of the NIAID in 1988, where he became a recognized expert in primate models for AIDS, helped create the extramural grants and contracts funding infrastructure to support that work, finally serving as Chief of the Vaccine Research & Development Branch from 1992 to 1999. A ten-year period at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) then broadened his experience in vaccine manufacturing, downstream processing and regulatory compliance. In 2010, Dr. Schultz returned to the Division of AIDS, NIAID, where he continues his focus on promoting optimization of primate models for AIDS vaccines.

Bill Snow

Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise

Mr. William (Bill) Snow is a Director of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, an alliance of organizations dedicated to accelerating the development of preventive HIV vaccines. Bill oversees a Secretariat who helps to facilitate coordination, collaboration, knowledge sharing and resource optimization in the HIV vaccine field. Bill has a long and distinguished history in the HIV vaccine field, advising on and advocating for funding, legislation and a wide variety of activities to help accelerate development of a safe, effective and affordable AIDS vaccine for more than 20 years. He is a co-founder and long-time Board member of AVAC: Global Advocacy for HIV Prevention, and was a member of the Coordinating Committee and Board of the Enterprise when it received its initial funding in 2005. Bill was instrumental in establishing national, local and global community-advisory boards at the NIH clinical trial networks AVEG, HIVNET and HVTN and today sits on the NIAID AIDS Vaccine Research Subcommittee, the NIH Vaccine Research Center Scientific Advisory Working Group and has at times served in the leadership groups of every HIV vaccine clinical trials group to date.

Susan Zolla-Pazner, PhD

NYU Langone School of Medicine

Dr. Zolla-Pazner is an immunologist whose research focus is on the intersection between basic immunology and human disease. She has received continuous funding and served as PI on investigator-initiated research grants, program project grants and training grants from the NIH, Department of Veterans Affairs and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation since 1969. Her research, since 1981, has focused on the immunologic abnormalities in HIV infection, the human antibody response to HIV, the production and characterization of human anti-HIV monoclonal antibodies, the development of HIV vaccine candidates, and the study of antibody responses to various HIV candidate vaccines. She has also worked extensively on the antibody response in humans with TB and HIV/TB co-infection; this latter work has served as the basis for the development of a TB serodiagnostic assay which is being developed commercially, and for the identification of immunogens for use as TB vaccine candidates. She is a recognized expert in the development and characterization of human monoclonal antibodies and the epitopes they recognize. She has published >270 papers, many in high impact journals including Science, Journal of Infectious Diseases, Journal of Immunology, Journal of Virology, Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, etc.