National
Leaders in HIV Vaccine Research Present Scientific Symposium at Emory
University
ATLANTA A group
of the nation's most respected scientific leaders in the search for
an AIDS vaccine will gather at Emory University on Monday, April 22
to present a scientific symposium. "AIDS Vaccine Science in 2002: Enduring
Challenges and Promising New Directions" is sponsored by the Emory Vaccine
Research Center and the Emory Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) and will
address the latest findings in basic, pre-clinical and clinical AIDS
vaccine studies. The symposium is free and open to physicians, medical
researchers, health professionals, academics, and members of the public
health community. It will take place from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the auditorium
of Emory University's Woodruff Health Sciences Center Administration
Building at 1440 Clifton Rd. on the Emory campus.
The symposium will include
Rafi Ahmed, Ph.D., Georgia Research Alliance professor of microbiology
and immunology and director of the Emory Vaccine Research Center; Emilio
A. Emini, Ph.D., senior vice president for vaccine and biologics research
at Merck Research Laboratories; Mark B. Feinberg, M.D., Ph.D., professor
of medicine and microbiology and immunology, Emory University School
of Medicine and medical director, The Hope Clinic of the Emory Vaccine
Research Center; Gary Nabel, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Vaccine Research
Center, National Institutes of Health (NIH); Neal Nathanson, M.D., vice
provost for research, University of Pennsylvania and former director,
Office of AIDS Research, NIH; and Harriet Robinson, Ph.D., chief, Division
of Microbiology and Immunology, Yerkes Primate Research Center, and
Asa Griggs Candler professor of microbiology and immunology, Emory University
School of Medicine.
The symposium is sponsored
by the Emory Vaccine Research Center and the Emory Center for AIDS Research
to celebrate the opening of The Hope Clinic a newly created Emory
clinical research facility devoted to clinical trials of promising new
vaccines and therapeutic interventions. The Emory Vaccine Research Center
is home to one of the largest basic and preclinical vaccine research
programs at any university worldwide.
The Hope Clinic of the Emory
Vaccine Research Center provides new opportunities to translate basic
research findings into useful clinical advances to ameliorate global
public health threats, including AIDS and malaria. The clinic is strategically
located in downtown Decatur to enable community-based clinical research.
It was created through the combined efforts of the Emory University
School of Medicine, the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center and
the Emory Center for AIDS Research (CFAR).
- Rafi Ahmed became director
of the Emory Vaccine Research Center and was named the Georgia Research
Alliance Eminent Scholar in Vaccine Research in 1995. Prior to joining
Emory, he was a faculty member at the University of California, Los
Angeles. His research efforts are directed towards understanding the
mechanisms of immunological memory and using this knowledge to develop
new and more effective vaccines.
- Emilio Emini joined Merck
in 1983, where since 1987 he has headed Merck's overall vaccine research
program while retaining a personal interest in the development of
an HIV vaccine. He is currently responsible for the discovery and
early development of both vaccines and biologic therapeutic agents.
Within Merck, he has headed the biological studies that supported
the company's anti-HIV antiviral drug research efforts. He contributed
to both the molecular and biological literature of viral resistance
to the HIV protease and nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors.
- Prior to joining the
Emory faculty in 1998, Mark Feinberg served as medical officer for
the Office of AIDS Research at the NIH and as chair of the NIH Coordinating
Committee on AIDS Etiology and Pathogenesis Research. >From 1991-95
he was on the faculty of the University of California at San Francisco,
where he was associate director of the UCSF Center for AIDS Research
and director of the Virology Core Laboratory. He has served on the
Committee for Oversight of AIDS Activities at the Institute of Medicine
and the National Academy for Sciences and on the Institute of Medicine's
Roundtable for the Development of AIDS Drugs and Vaccines. He is principal
investigator of Phase I clinical trials of experimental AIDS vaccines,
and the laboratory he is developing additional vaccine strategies.
- Before joining the NIH,
Gary Nabel was a professor of internal medicine and biological chemistry
at the University of Michigan, where he served as director of the
Center for Gene Therapy and co-director of the Center for Molecular
Medicine and as an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
He is a member of the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy
of Sciences. His laboratory has developed gene transfer strategies
that are being applied to the development of vaccines and treatment
of AIDS, Ebola virus, cancer and other diseases.
- Neal Nathanson was formerly
director of the Office of AIDS Research (OAR) at the National Institutes
of Health. He has a broad background in virology, epidemiology and
public health and is particularly known for his contributions to the
field of viral pathogenesis, having edited the definitive text on
this subject. He has served on a number of government advisory groups,
including the NIH AIDS Vaccine Research Committee, the UNAIDS Vaccine
Advisory Committee, and the Board of Scientific Counselors of NIAID
and NINDS.
- Harriet Robinson was
one of the first scientists to demonstrate that purified DNA could
be used as a safe and effective vaccine. She was lead author of the
comprehensive American Society of Microbiology guide to DNA vaccines.
She is principal investigator for one of the most promising HIV candidate
vaccine currently under development and plans to initiate Phase I
clinical trials in humans beginning in early summer. In addition,
she is developing vaccines to target HIV variations prevalent in Africa,
India and China, and she is a consultant on HIV/AIDS for Cote d'Ivoire.
For more information about
this event contact 404-712-9266 or email vaccine@emory.edu.
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