all Bruce D. Walker stories

NIH renews Harvard Center for AIDS Research grant for another five years

404132862 — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:22:18 -0400

The National Institutes of Health has renewed for five years - and $18.1 million - the funding for the Harvard University Center for AIDS Research (Harvard CFAR).

Harvard is one of only 20 NIH CFAR sites in the U.S. and first received the designation in 2004.

AIDS research symposium details advances

404132862 — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:05:23 -0400

Harvard AIDS researchers recently detailed recent advances in the fight against the ongoing global pandemic, including new vaccine strategies, insights into the disease’s progression in the world’s hardest-hit regions, and new knowledge about the body’s immune response against infection.

Search for new tuberculosis drugs outlined

50443248 — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:01:16 -0400

A new drug candidate that attacks the cell walls of tuberculosis bacteria offers a promising alternative in the fight against a disease that has been resurgent in the global age of AIDS, according to findings highlighted by a key researcher Friday (June 12) at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.

Hundred million dollar gift to launch innovative search for AIDS vaccine

404132862 — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:22:57 -0500

Harvard Medical School professor Bruce Walker, M.D. has been selected as the founding director of a unique new $100 million effort to finally develop a vaccine that can halt the global HIV/AIDS pandemic which, if it continues unchecked, is predicted to claim an additional 70 million lives by 2020.

HOPE in African HIV/AIDS fight

404132862 — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 11:32:16 -0500

It was close to midnight one day this week in Durban, South Africa, when Harvard AIDS researcher Bruce D. Walker switched on his computer and made a visit to 104 Mt. Auburn St. in Cambridge.

Second pathway behind HIV-associated immune system dysfunction is discovered

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 13:27:27 -0400

Researchers at the Partners AIDS Research Center (PARC) at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) may have discovered a second molecular “switch” responsible for turning off the immune system’s response against HIV. Last year, members of the same team identified a molecule called PD-1 that suppresses the activity of HIV-specific CD8 T cells that should destroy virus-infected cells. Now the researchers describe how a regulatory protein called CTLA-4 inhibits the action of HIV-specific CD4 T cells that control the overall response against the virus. The report will appear in the journal Nature Immunology and is receiving early online release.

Harvard faculty press aggressive agenda for AIDS fight in Africa

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:06:23 -0400

A statement signed by more than 100 Harvard faculty members calls upon wealthy countries, in partnership with poor countries, to establish a global trust fund to make life-prolonging antiretroviral therapy available in the areas of the world hardest hit by the AIDS epidemic. The statement is the first of its kind to outline a comprehensive approach to counter the increasing global inequities in HIV treatment.

T-cell response to HIV proteins may make them vaccine candidates

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:11:56 -0400

Development of a vaccine against HIV-1 has long focused on the virus's structural proteins. These molecules are expressed relatively late in the viral life cycle, after HIV-1 has decreased the expression of an important set of cellular proteins involved in the body's ability to fight viral infections. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School have now found that two HIV-1 regulatory proteins, Tat and Rev, expressed earlier in the HIV-1 life cycle, are frequently targeted by the immune system of infected individuals. The fact that Tat and Rev are frequently targeted by cells critical to fighting HIV infection indicates that they may be "candidates for a multicomponent HIV-1 vaccine."