The mission of the Harvard University Center for AIDS Research (HU CFAR) is to expand, promote, and facilitate collaborative, multidisciplinary activities in HIV/AIDS research, education and training among CFAR members and associate members throughout the University, in order to help end the AIDS pandemic.

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The National Institutes for Health has renewed funding for the Harvard University Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) with a $18.1 million grant over the next five years.

“It’s been a terrific source of funds for us to launch new efforts and be able to help recruit new faculty,” said Bruce D. Walker, director of the Harvard CFAR and a professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

The award, under the umbrella of the Harvard Initiative for Global Health (HIGH), will fund clinical and basic science research conducted at Harvard University and its affiliated hospitals. The new grant will help facilitate the continued growth and integration of AIDS research at Harvard in six core areas: international, retroviral therapeutics, vaccine, pathogenesis, clinical epidemiology and outcomes, and behavioral and social sciences. Harvard Science. Click here for full article.

More Coverage of this story is available on The Harvard Crimson. Click here for full article.

HIV Denialism, Mistrust, and Stigma Symposium

Researchers from Harvard, elsewhere in the United States, and South Africa convened at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts to decry HIV “denialism,” saying that the continued questioning of HIV’s role in AIDS harms those infected with the virus by discouraging both testing and treatment. The event, sponsored by the HU CFAR, was presented in conjunction with the Carpenter Center’s exhibit “ACT UP New York: Activism, Art, and the AIDS Crisis, 1987-1993.” Harvard Gazette. Click here for full text.

Harvard Magazine November - December 2009

"From AIDS to Art"
An exhibition explores the visual legacy of ACT UP’s campaign to galvanize action against a new epidemic.

Rare 'Outliers' Drive Search for Cures to Disease
Researchers Focus on Individuals With Unusual Medical Profiles; a Few HIV-Positive Patients Avoid Illness Without Treatment
Wall Street Journal, October 20, 2009

Douglas Robinson often wonders why he is still alive.

Mr. Robinson, of Truro, Mass., was diagnosed with HIV in November 2003. But the 45-year-old hasn't progressed to AIDS, and he has an extremely low viral count despite never having received antiretroviral therapy. Now, his doctors are trying to figure out why.

Bruce Walker, director of AIDS research at Massachusetts General Hospital, heads an international consortium of doctors and researchers that has started identifying hundreds of so-called elite controllers, people like Mr. Robinson who fare far better than what doctors typically expect of most people who contract HIV. HIV patients usually need to take drugs for the rest of their lives to stop the disease from progressing. Without treatment, people like Mr. Robinson who are infected with HIV for six years typically would possess more than 50,000 copies of the virus, Dr. Walker says. But Mr. Robinson has fewer than 50 copies.  Full text.

Treating HIV Earlier Could Save 76,000 Lives Over 5 Years

HU CFAR Clinical Epidemiology and Outcomes Research Program Associate Director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, and Director, Dr. Kenneth Freedberg, discuss their team's findings regarding starting HIV treatment in developing nations earlier than the World Health Organization recommends, a change that may save 76,000 lives in South Africa alone. "Early initiation of lifesaving antiretroviral therapies should be the standard of care for all HIV-infected patients, even those in countries with limited medical and financial resources, according to a study led by Harvard Medical School (HMS) researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre, University of Cape Town, South Africa." Harvard Science, 6/24/09 Full Text. Please click here for a PDF of the article published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.  

Women 'naturally weaker' to HIV 

 

Director of HU CFAR Pathogenesis Program, Marcus Altfeld, PhD, MD, and Associate Director of HU CFAR Immunology Program, Galit Alter, PhD  co-authored an article in Nature Medicine, which explains why "experts believe women are naturally programmed to be the weaker sex when it comes to fighting off HIV. It is well known that HIV progresses faster in women than in men with similar levels of HIV in the blood. Now a US research team has found that a receptor molecule involved in the first-line recognition of HIV responds differently in women. The findings in Nature Medicine might provide new ways to treat HIV and slow or stop the progression to AIDS." BBC, 7/13/09 Full Text. Please click here for a PDF of the article published in Nature Medicine.

HU CFAR Director Discusses the Rare Few Who Are Protected from AIDS


Bruce Walker, MD
HU CFAR Director

At first Karen Pancheau figured her son Tyler's nasty rash came from friction on the mats at judo class. But when the rash began dissolving layers of flesh, his father took the teenager for tests, which revealed he had HIV. Karen, too, tested positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, which she'd apparently acquired from a blood transfusion in June 1982 and to which she'd exposed Tyler during childbirth and breast-feeding. Yet as Tyler's HIV slowly progressed to AIDS, Karen remained healthy. Washington Post, 7/7/09. Full Text.