From L to R, Back to Front: Beatrice Hahn, Bette Korber, Persephone Borrow, Andrew McMichael, Anthony Fauci, George Shaw, Barton Haynes, Joseph Sodroski, Stuart Shapiro, Garnett Kelsoe (*Bold denotes active CHAVI-ID SLG Member)

Dr. Haynes is an expert in T and B-cell immunology, retrovirology, and HIV vaccine development. Dr. Haynes received his M.D. from Baylor College in 1973 and has served as Chief of the Division of Rheumatology, Allergy, and Clinical Immunology from 1987-1995 and as Chair of the Department of Medicine from 1995-2002 at Duke University Medical Center. He is a Fellow of the Infectious Disease Society of America, a member of the Association of American Physicians, a member of the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In HIV research, Haynes led the CHAVI team that defined the initial immune responses to transmitted/founder viruses in acute HIV infection, discovered the polyreactivity of broad neutralizing antibodies (BnAbs), and defined the role of host immune tolerance controls in limiting BnAb production. Additionally, Haynes led the team that mapped the co-evolution of transmitted/founder viruses and BnAbs, developed small molecules that mimic BnAb Env regions, and produced HIV envelope vaccine candidates for human clinical trials.

Garnett Kelsoe, D.Sc. - Duke University 
Garnett Kelsoe, D.Sc. is the James B. Duke Professor of Immunology and member of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute. Kelsoe and his collaborators have long been interested in the biology of B lymphocytes and have worked to demonstrate stochastic variable (V) gene segment use in the primary B-cell repertoire; the migrations of antigen-activated T and B lymphocytes during humoral responses; the germinal center as the primary site of V(D)J hypermutation and affinity-driven selection; the role of complement in the germinal center response and affinity maturation of serum antibodies; the nature, role, and distribution of cryptic, V(D)J recombination signals in the mammalian genome; and the basic mechanisms of central B-cell tolerance. In addition, Kelsoe and his collaborators at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute have worked to understand the role of B-cell tolerance in determining the tempo and quality of serum antibody responses to HIV-1 and influenza.

Bette Korber, PhD - Los Alamos National Laboratory 
Bette Korber, PhD is a Laboratory Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory and an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute. She obtained a Ph.D. in Immunology from Caltech in 1988, and was a Leukemia Society postdoctoral fellow in retrovirology at Harvard before joining the Theoretical Biology group at Los Alamos in 1990. At that point, she turned from the lab bench to theory and analyses. She has led an HIV sequence and immunology database project at Los Alamos for the past 15 years.

In part, using the collected data in the HIV database as a foundation for her work, and in part working with experimentalist collaborators from around globe, she has co-authored more than 200 scientific papers. Most of these studies focus on HIV, but occasionally involve work on other pathogens. Her primary areas of research include HIV vaccine design and HIV evolution in the context of the host immune response. Scientifically, she most enjoys working in interdisciplinary collaborations to understand and interpret complex experimental data. She received the E.O. Lawrence Award, the highest scientific honor from the Department of Energy, and was Elizabeth Glaser Scientist.

Andrew McMichael, MD - Oxford University
Andrew J. McMichael, MD qualified in Medicine in 1968 and obtained a PhD in Immunology in 1974. He has worked primarily on human T cell immune responses to viruses. He first showed that virus specific CD8 T cells were HLA restricted and his group demonstrated that virus derived peptides were presented to T cells by HLA class I molecules. Since 1987 he has studied the T cell response to HIV, with a particular interest in virus escape from T cell recognition. For the last five years he has focussed on HIV vaccines. His group have designed and tested two candidate HIV vaccines in phase I clinical trials. His group has also been involved in developing novel methods for measuring T cell responses including HLA tetramers, and cultured elispot assays.

He is currently Director of the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford University, Honorary Director of the Medical Research Council Human Immunology Unit, Chair of the Infections and Immunity Board of the MRC and a member of MRC Council. He was recently elected a member of EMBO and is a Fellow of the Royal Society.

George Shaw, MD, PhD - University of Pennsylvania
George M. Shaw, MD, PhD is Professor of Medicine and Microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Shaw’s research interests include viral dynamics and mechanisms of HIV-1 persistence in vivo, including virus escape from adaptive humoral and cellular immune effector arms. Dr. Shaw’s research interests also include the study of molecular mechanisms of HIV-1 neutralization, development of recombinant-based HIV infectivity assays to detect epitope-specific neutralizing antibodies, and development of new strategies to elicit potent, broadly neutralizing antibodies by vaccination.

Joseph Sodroski, MD - Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Joseph Sodroski, MD received his M.D. from Jefferson Medical College in 1980 and did his postdoctoral training at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in the laboratory of Dr. William Haseltine. He is currently Professor of Pathology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School and Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Dr. Joseph Sodroski’s research has focused on the molecular mechanisms of replication and pathogenesis of human retroviruses, including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1), the cause of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Dr. Sodroski first demonstrated that human retroviruses encode proteins that regulate viral gene expression. Dr. Sodroski then explored the basis of HIV-1’s killing of the host cell and demonstrated the involvement of the viral envelope proteins in this process. Using an animal model of HIV-1 infection that he developed, Dr. Sodroski linked this killing effect to the loss of CD4-expressing T lymphocytes, a major cause of AIDS immunosuppression. Dr. Sodroski has characterized the entry of HIV-1 into the host cell, identifying the second receptors of the virus. In collaboration with Drs. Hendrickson and Kwong, Dr. Sodroski solved the first x-ray crystal structure of the HIV-1 exterior envelope protein, a major target for drugs and vaccine-induced antibodies. Dr. Sodroski first modified HIV-1 to create defective lentivirus vectors for use in basic and clinical gene therapy. Using these vectors, Dr. Sodroski identified a factor, TRIM5alpha, that blocks HIV-1 soon after the virus enters the cells of monkeys.

Dr. Sodroski served as Director of the Center for AIDS Research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Children’s Hospital from 1994-2004, and is currently Associate Director of the Harvard Medical School Center for AIDS Research.