Nobel Prize winner Prof. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi lead WHO memorial on WA Day.
Addressing an audience at WHO then at UNAIDS headquarters on 1 December, World AIDS day, HIV discoverer and 2008 Nobel Prize winner for medicine, Prof. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi (Head of Retroviral Research Department, Pasteur Institute, Paris) summarized the challenges ahead in HIV research.
"We need to go back to basic research, and I here initiate a call for young researchers to join in what must be an international effort against HIV",she said. To arrive at an understanding of the way HIV affects the immune system, there is a need for researchers from different fields to examine the issue.
Her main points relative to research were:
HIV discovery (in 1983) came about as a result of cooperation betweenclinical and fundamental research . Today, again, collaboration between clinical research and fundamental research is required.
HIV research needs the input of young researchers with novel ideas; the research must go back to basic research.
Bad news can be good news: The bad news was that Merck's vaccine trial failed. It's good news, because it shows that old line vaccine research will not work against HIV, and the scientific community was divided on this. This failure shows that to progress against HIV, we need to go back to try to understand the basics!
To progress against HIV, basic research must be emphasized and it must involve several disciplines, and several fields of research.
HIV research will benefit research on other diseases, and research on TB and other diseases can and will benefit HIV research
There are many aspects in the HIV/immune system interaction that we have yet to understand:
Ø Cell to cell communication,
Ø Why HIV activation of the immune system is synonymous with development of the AIDS disease, but some individuals are resistant and in those HIV does not active the immune system.
Ø The way in which HIV perturbs immune function in the first day, or even the first hour after infection (and not just months or years afterwards).
Ø The effect of HIV in activating the mucosal immunity in the intestines, which appears to play a key role in the pathogenesis.
African primates can live quite well with the multiplication of the virus, while Asian Macaques get AIDS, why is that? Why are some strains of HIV not as dangerous as others and why some individuals can live in peace with HIV? These are questions that need answers.
Microbicides trials have failed. Now the development of microbicides that use antiretrovirals is a path that could be investigated.
HIV research needs enhanced research collaboration and cooperation on the national and international level.
At the WHO welcoming meeting with staff and in the UNAIDS scientific research presentation that followed, Dr François Barré-Sinoussi emphasized that efforts to combat HIV had more often than not been associated with increase efforts for primary health care and for the strengthening of health care system - as exemplified by her experience over the years in the national effort against AIDS in Cambodia.
The need to combine strengthened health care system with HIV research, treatment and prevention was the lead message of WHO HTM Department head, Dr Hiroki Nakatani, who introduced the event.
--
Garance UPHAM
mailto:fannie.upham@gmail.com