Speakers, Presentation Title, and Bio’s:
TITLE: Why HIV Vaccines Are Still Needed
SPEAKER: Glenda Gray, South African Medical Research Council
Glenda Gray, MBBCH, FCPaeds (SA), DSc (honoris causa, Simon Fraser University 2013), DSc (honoris causa, Stellenbosch University 2018), Honorary Doctorate in Law (Rhodes University, 2019), an NRF A rated scientist, was the first female president and CEO of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) and is currently the Chief Scientific Officer at the SAMRC.
Gray trained as a medical doctor and pediatrician at the University of the Witwatersrand and co-founded and led the internationally renowned Perinatal HIV Research Unit based at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto. As a clinical researcher, she is internationally known for her research in HIV vaccines and interventions to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV. She is the Co-PI of the of the NIH funded HIV Vaccine Trials Network and is responsible for the expansion of HIV vaccine research in Africa. In 2002, she was awarded the Nelson Mandela Health and Human Rights Award for pioneering work done in the field of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV-1.
She is a member of the Academy of Science in South Africa, the African Academy of Science and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). She is one of a handful of foreign associates of the USA National Academy of Medicine, of the National Academies of Science, and has served on their Global Health Board. She was the Chair for the Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases (GACD). Gray has also been awarded the IAPAC “Hero of Medicine” award for work done in the field of HIV treatment in children and adults.
TITLE: Clinical Progress Toward Vaccine Induction of HIV Broadly Neutralizing Antibodies
SPEAKER: William Schief, Moderna
William Schief is Vice President, Protein Design, Moderna; Professor, Immunology and Microbiology, Scripps Research; and Executive Director, Vaccine Design, IAVI Neutralizing Antibody Center at Scripps. He has a BS in Applied Mathematics from Yale University and a PhD in Physics from the University of Washington. His work focuses on computation-guided and structure-based design of vaccines and therapeutics for a wide range of diseases. For HIV vaccine development, the topic of this ISV 2025 mini-symposium, Dr. Schief is pursuing the strategy of germline-targeting vaccine design with many collaborators. This strategy aims to induce broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) through a series of vaccinations that first activates naïve bnAb-precursor B cells sharing key genetic features of bnAbs and then guides B cell somatic hypermutation and affinity maturation to produce bnAbs in germinal center and memory B cells, plasma cells, and serum.
TITLE: Immune Correlates of Protection for HIV Vaccines
SPEAKER: Peter Gilbert, Fred Hutch Cancer Center
Dr. Peter Gilbert, Professor of Biostatistics at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and the University of Washington, conducts statistical science research for randomized trials of candidate vaccines for HIV, SARS-CoV-2, and other infectious pathogens. He specializes in statistical methods for analyzing these trials in pursuit of understanding “immune correlates of protection,” which involve immune response biomarkers as well as genotypic and immunophenotypic pathogen features. A central application of this research is development of biomarker surrogate endpoints that can be used to infer the level of vaccine efficacy against infectious disease outcomes. Dr. Gilbert is a Principal Investigator of the Statistical Data Management Center for the NIH NIAID-sponsored HIV Vaccine Trials Network.
TITLE: The Progress of Polyvalent DNA Prime and Protein Boost HIV Vaccine (PDPHV)
SPEAKER: Shan Lu,UMASS Chan Medical School and Worcester HIV Vaccine (WHV)
Shan Lu is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, USA. He was a pioneer in nucleic acid vaccines in the early 1990s and has continuously worked to advance this field in the past three decades. He advocated the heterologous prime-boost vaccination concept and developed the world’s first polyvalent DNA prime protein boost HIV vaccine into human clinical studies, which showed robust and broadly cross-reactive immune responses.
Besides being a US board-certified physician in internal medicine with more than 20 years’ clinical practice, Dr. Lu has managed major NIH-funded vaccine development programs, including GMP manufacturing, FDA IND filing and human clinical studies. He has broad biotech industry collaborations, and joined Worcester HIV Vaccine in 2022, serving as its Chief Scientific Officer. He was the past president of International Society for Vaccines (ISV) and is the current co-chair of Corporate Partnership Program (CPP) at the International AIDS Society (IAS).
Moderators Bio’s:
MODERATOR: Lindsey Baden, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Lindsey Baden, MD, serves as vice president of Clinical Research for Brigham and Women’s Hospital. In his role as vice president, Baden provides comprehensive oversight of clinical research at the Brigham and is responsible for developing and implementing operational strategies, as well as building and maintaining the necessary infrastructure and resources in support of our clinical research mission and operational goals. He also oversees the Center for Clinical Investigation, serves as the primary liaison with Harvard Catalyst/Harvard Medical School, and has responsibility for increasing and maintaining research relationships across the Brigham, Mass General Brigham and our local collaborators.
Baden, an infectious diseases specialist, joined the Brigham in 1995 and has served in several critical leadership roles, including directing the Infectious Diseases Immunocompromised Host program at the Brigham and Dana-Farber, acting as program leader for the Clinical Research Centers of Harvard Catalyst and directing the Center for Clinical Investigation. A professor at Harvard Medical School and deputy editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, Baden is a highly respected clinician and clinical investigator. He has received continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) throughout his career and is an expert in developing new therapeutics and vaccines. In response to the COVID-19 crisis, he was integral in the design and conduct of the pivotal NIH co-sponsored vaccine efficacy trials, Of note, he is the co-principal investigator for the phase 3 COVE study, which evaluated the mRNA-1273 (Moderna) vaccine candidate against COVID-19. This phase three trial, conducted in part at the Brigham, has led to the unprecedented rapid emergency use authorization, subsequent licensure and broad global use of this highly effective vaccine.
MODERATOR: Nyaradzo Mgodi, University of Zimbabwe Clinical Trials Research Center
Nyaradzo Mavis Mgodi is a clinical pathologist with over 10 years of experience conducting HIV clinical trials in women of reproductive age in Africa. She is lead investigator in multiple clinical trials assessing various biomedical HIV prevention interventions, like vaginal rings, oral PrEP, injectable PrEP and broadly neutralizing antibodies. Nyaradzo serves as a member of the HPTN Executive Committee and a scientific reviewer for the Medical Research Council of Zimbabwe and has served as a technical advisor for the Zimbabwe Population-based HIV Impact Assessment (ZIMPHIA) survey. She is a member of the Policy and Implementation Steering Committee for the Global Evaluation of Microbicide Sensitivity (GEMS) project. She served as a Programme Organizing Committee member for HIVR4P 2018 and Conference Advisory Committee member for the International AIDS Society in 2017.
America & Europe: 06:00 (PDT) |09:00 (EDT) | 14:00 (BST) | 15:00 (CEST)
Central & South America: 07:00 (Mexico) |10:00 (Argentina)
Africa: 14:00 (West Africa) | 15:00 (South Africa) | 16:00 (East Africa)