Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the cause of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), is defined by its adaptability, which is one reason why it has been so difficult to develop a cure for AIDS. “Thousands of variants can evolve from a single HIV variant during the course of untreated infection,” says HHMI Investigator Robert F. Siliciano. “HIV mutates 70 times faster than SARS-CoV-2.”
That’s one reason why the worldwide search for an HIV vaccine or AIDS cure is still ongoing after more than 40 years. But that effort has fostered generations of innovative researchers who have taken up the challenge in the face of a global pandemic. The scientific response to this virus has evolved as quickly and continuously as its subject, leading to breakthroughs in lifesaving antiretroviral therapies for HIV and vaccines for other conditions as well.
HHMI supports scientists whose expertise and careers span the entire existence of AIDS research as a field since its first emergence in the United States in 1981. In these short profiles, we highlight some of these scientists’ contributions to our understanding of this virus – past, present, and future.
Witness to a Pandemic
Bruce D. Walker, an HHMI Investigator since 2002, had been a practicing physician in the earliest days of the AIDS epidemic, before the virus even had a name. But the virus ultimately defined his career.
Says Walker, “There are places in the world where this epidemic is still raging, and I think people don’t fully understand that. A lot of people think that this is a problem that’s been solved and it’s unfortunately still a problem that needs scientific focus and advancement to ultimately conquer.”
Chasing an Elusive Virus
In the mid-1980s, HHMI Investigator Robert F. Siliciano began studying a relatively new pathogen as a postdoc. When he began his own lab, he focused exclusively on the virus: HIV.
“Through collaboration,” Siliciano says, “we can take advantage of all of the vaccine knowledge and infrastructure and technological capabilities that have grown in the last 40 years.”
Addressing a Global Plague
In 2008, HHMI Investigators Bruce Walker and William R. Jacobs, Jr. made an unusual ask to the HHMI Board of Trustees: funding for a facility to revolutionize AIDS treatment in an area where the virus still raged: Durban, South Africa.
Says Dennis McKearin, HHMI Scientific Officer who was the acting director for the KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for Tuberculosis and HIV (K-RITH) for three years: "You can see what people in resource-limited environments achieve and be impressed with the breakthroughs they make. It’s remarkable, but it also underlines the importance of giving them more to work with. In Durban, we helped to build a scientific enterprise that could train a lot of African and South African scientists."
Understanding Immunity
As a postdoc studying immune system response to pathogens, HHMI Hanna Gray Fellow Jeannette Tenthorey realized HIV was a fruitful field of research. Her work shows how much is left to understand about the virus.
“HHMI scientists are encouraged to ask different questions than other people in our fields,” says Tenthorey. "We’re free to understand our work from a different angle, which in HIV and AIDS means we can study broader elements of the virus without feeling pressure to find a cure and create a drug."
New Frontiers
Inspired by the work of HHMI Investigators, Hanna Gray Fellow Christopher Barnes and his lab focus on studying how HIV makes first contact with host cells – and how the immune system responds.
“This field requires a lot of creativity,” says Barnes. “There are new ways to think about HIV, technologies that did not exist even three years ago when I started my lab at Stanford."