AIDS@40: Stories of hope and heroes

June 5, 2021, will mark 40 years since Los Angeles physician Dr. Michael Gottlieb and colleagues published the first medical account of what would eventually become known as AIDS. It was a short summary in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s printed weekly newsletter of five cases of pneumonia in gay men, all of whom eventually died. The global story that has unfolded since is an unspeakable tragedy. HIV/AIDS has claimed more than 32.7 million lives, dwarfing the toll of the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Yet it is also a story of hope and heroes, of activism and ingenuity that spurred one of the most extraordinary scientific achievements of the 20th century. The development of antiviral drug combinations turned what had been a death sentence into a manageable chronic disease for millions and launched efforts to make these expensive medications available at low cost to the developing world. Today more than 26 million people are accessing antiretroviral therapy. AIDS-related deaths have fallen 60% since their peak in 2004.

Still, this triumph is far from complete. Each year, more than 1.7 million people around the globe are infected. Stigma, racism, underfunding and health care inequalities have left HIV/AIDS increasingly rooted in disadvantaged and marginalized communities. Effective treatments in the U.S. can cost $39,000 a year. There is still no vaccine. There are treatments, but there is no cure.

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, with a scientific staff grounded in virology and immunology, has been a global leader in the scientific efforts to stop this pandemic. Over the years, the Hutch has told scores of stories about the people and the science involved in this work — a vast collaboration of researchers, activists, government policymakers and industry pursuing a common goal. To mark 40 years since the emergence of this disease, we offer here a selection of 40 stories of hope and heroes, written by Fred Hutch writers about the work that has been done and the unfinished business ahead.

Also, you can watch a video of the AIDS@40: Remembering & Renewal virtual event, hosted by Fred Hutch President & Director Dr. Tom Lynch.

ON THIS PAGE:

The people  |  The science  |  Vaccine and antibody research  |  Cure research  |  Watch AIDS@40 Video

Vaccine and antibody research

Results of the Antibody Mediated Prevention, or AMP trials, released in January, were a proof of principle that infusions of a broadly neutralizing antibody could prevent infection in people at risk for HIV — if those antibodies matched certain viral strains at defined levels of potency.

Antibody trial results offer ‘proof of concept’ (Jan. 2021)

Now that daily PrEP pills and long-term injections have been shown to protect people from infection with HIV, will volunteers still sign up for a vaccine trial where they might receive a placebo? Vaccine researchers say that the need for a vaccine is as great as ever, and they can still find willing participants.

HIV vaccine trials are complicated by the availability of PrEP (Nov. 2020)

Just as the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread, hopes for good news on HIV vaccines were dashed by the surprising failure of HVTN’s Uhambo trial, a large multinational study of a vaccine meant to improve upon the promising results of a 2009 vaccine trial in Thailand, which reduced infections by 32%.

Promising HIV vaccine fails to show efficacy (Feb. 2020)

A new large HIV vaccine trial, Mosaico — like its companion study, Imbokodo — is testing a new vaccine inspired by the concept of a mosaic. It is built using parts, like mosaic tiles, from many different HIV strains found around the world. The idea is to overcome HIV’s ability to rapidly escape, through mutation, the protection offered by a vaccine containing a single strain.

New HIV vaccine trial to launch in the U.S., Latin America and Europe (July 2019)

Hutch researchers are exploring a new way of training the immune system to build broadly neutralizing antibodies against HIV through a series of steps that generate precursors of these potent immune proteins — a kind of directed evolution of antibodies.

Baiting for B cells: clever new way to make an AIDS vaccine (Oct. 2019) 

Blood samples from a study of mother-to-child transmission of HIV conducted in Kenya decades are yielding clues that babies develop neutralizing antibodies to HIV. Dr. Julie Overbaugh and her team are studying whether these antibodies in children might inform development of a vaccine.

How babies may help researchers build a better HIV vaccine (April 2015)

Dr. Leo Stamatatos and colleagues at Fred Hutch are probing the body’s ability to generate broadly neutralizing antibodies, which can overcome shape-shifting HIV’s ability to elude the kind of antibodies that vaccine elicit to stop other viral diseases like polio and measles.

Closing in on the ‘holy grail’ of HIV vaccine (Dec. 2014)

Cure research

Dr. Hans-Peter Kiem, who directs the Cell & Gene Therapy Program at Fred Hutch and holds the Stephanus Family Endowed Chair for Cell and Gene Therapy, is an advocate for using “gene-therapy in a syringe” to cure HIV. In a TEDxSeattle talk, he explains why the idea is not “pie in the sky.” 

Dr. Hans-Peter Kiem speaks about HIV and making gene therapy more accessible(Jan. 2020)

Hopes for an HIV cure were boosted by the news that a second patient, a man in London later identified as Adam Castillejo, had been cured of HIV — like Timothy Ray Brown — through a stem cell transplant of cells containing HIV resistance genes.

London transplant doctors report a second patient likely cured of HIV (March 2019)

Proliferation or replication? A Hutch study suggests HIV persists despite antiviral therapy through the proliferation, or an increase in the number of infected cells, rather than by replication of viruses hiding in caches throughout the body. It means HIV might be best cleared by therapies that reduce cell proliferation, a standard strategy for blocking cancers.

Persistent HIV infection works a lot like cancer, study shows (Nov. 2018)

Dr. Carl June was an oncology fellow trained at Fred Hutch in bone marrow transplantation before he became a leading developer of CAR T-cell therapies for cancer at the University of Pennsylvania. He called his Seattle years “a transformative time” in his career, and while researching HIV at a Navy-funded lab he cemented his T-cell expertise. In a career spanning the worlds of HIV and cancer research, he sits on the board of defeatHIV and was keynote speaker at a Hutch’s HIV cure conference.

Dr. Carl June weaves together HIV and cancer research to advance cures for both (Aug. 2017)

Advisers to defeatHIV Community Advisory Boards held 10 focus groups around the country to ask how people with HIV felt about participating in HIV cure research. Then they shared their findings with the participants. 

Why volunteer for an HIV cure study? (June 2017)

Super survivors: Fewer than 5% of people living with HIV are long-term nonprogressors, who maintain low viral loads and stable levels of immune cells without medication. A smaller number of them are elite controllers, who have undetectable viral loads and normal immune cell counts. In this story we profile five of these super survivors, who are the focus of intense interest by researchers at Fred Hutch and throughout the country. 

Super survivors: What those with HIV who don’t get sick can teach us (Dec. 2015)

Dr. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi shared a Nobel Prize in medicine for the 1983 discovery of HIV, the retrovirus that causes AIDS. At Fred Hutch in 2014, she addressed the Conference on Cell & Gene Therapy for HIV Cure, making the case that scientists must still work toward a cure.

Having discovered HIV, Dr. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi wants a cure (Aug. 2014)

To mark 40 years of HIV, Fred Hutch President and Director Dr. Tom Lynch hosted AIDS@40: Remembering & Renewal, a program to remember those who work tirelessly in response to the epidemic. The hour-long presentation celebrated the strength and resilience of people who have been living with HIV for decades and reaffirms our vision to end HIV for everyone everywhere. You can view the entire program, which took place on June 2, 2021, by clicking on the image above.