The 2007 Lectures are now available
via on-demand webcast!
The 2007 Holiday Lectures on Science
Why has it been so hard to develop a vaccine against HIV?
How are new medicines revolutionizing AIDS treatment?
Can AIDS be cured?
Bruce Walker, M.D. and Bisola Ojikutu, M.D., M.P.H. are passionate about fighting the global AIDS epidemic. Walker
focuses on vaccine development in the lab, while Ojikutu works in the clinic and focuses on epidemiology.
Complementing their U.S.-based research, each spends several months a year in
Durban in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province—a region at the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic
in South Africa and the place with the highest incidence of HIV infection in the world. For
Walker and Ojikutu, HIV research and community work go hand in hand. They are involved in
myriad programs that deliver health care to infected individuals while also doing research to
improve and develop treatments for AIDS. HIV has proved to be a wily opponent with a penchant
for evolving resistance to each new drug and for eluding the usual tricks for developing effective
vaccines against viruses. The global community engaged in the battle against AIDS has many challenges
but also reasons for hope. Current treatments have turned HIV infection from a death
sentence into a manageable chronic condition, and new strategies raise the prospect of permanently
curbing the epidemic.
Click here to view lecture summaries of the 2007 Holiday Lectures.
Lectures Series Webcast On-demand
In four presentations, Donald E. Ganem, M.D., and B. Brett Finlay, Ph.D., discuss the latest advances in understanding how pathogens invade the body and how this knowledge is leading to the development of new therapies. They also explain how new infectious diseases are recognized and how epidemics arise.
Dr. Ganem is an HHMI investigator and professor of microbiology and immunology and of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Finlay is an HHMI international research scholar and professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and of microbiology and immunology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
Teacher's Guide (PDF)
Watch five animations on the tricks bacteria and viruses use to invade human cells.
When Worlds Collide: Micro versus Macro
Humans share the world with microbes — organisms too small to see in detail without the aid of a microscope. For most of human history, microorganisms were unknown and unsuspected. Microorganisms are an essential component of the environment, but they can also cause diseases.
The advent of microscopes, powerful enough to magnify by a factor of 100 times or more, ultimately produced a revolution in the scientific understanding of infectious diseases. Researchers began to recognize and inventory specific pathogens — agents that cause infectious diseases — that had plagued humanity for millennia.
Visit BioInteractive's Virtual Museum for an enlightening exhibit on humankind's struggle with microbial diseases.
Enter the exhibit
Antibiotics Attack!
Antibiotics Attack! is a tutorial designed to give any student background information on antibiotics, their function, and their targets. Read on...
Featured Infectious Diseases:
Polio
In the first decade of the new century, polio, a deadly and crippling infectious disease, may well be eradicated from the earth by immunization. Polio has already largely been relegated to the history books in the United States—although many people who had contracted polio in childhood suffer the muscle pain and weakness of postpolio syndrome. Read on...
Leprosy
In the United States, a federal hospital for leprosy sufferers is being phased out and its last 69 residents are being encouraged to leave the facility. And the World Health Organization targeted the year 2000 for eliminating leprosy on a global basis. Leprosy, that age-old scourge of humankind, finally may be on the run. Read on...
Malaria
Malaria is one of the oldest and most frequently occurring infectious diseases in humans. The malaria parasite, transmitted through the bite of an infected female mosquito, disables hundreds of millions of people worldwide each year. Read on...
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