To commemorate the 30th anniversary of the first reported cases of what is now known as AIDS, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, describes his personal experiences as a physician, leading HIV/AIDS researcher, and scientific administrator during a special lecture and editorial in the Washington Post.

Science Speaks HIV and TB News yesterday published a Q&A with Louis Picker, associate director of the Oregon Health & Science University’s Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute (VGTI). Picker led a team of researchers that tested in nonhuman primates an experimental vaccine construct based on a modified cytomegalovirus (CMV) vector that is capable of establishing a long-term presence in the body.

The World Today interviews Dr. Seth Berkeley about recent developments in HIV vaccine research.  Listen to and read the full interview here.

Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, spoke to the World Health Assembly and representatives of 193 member states yesterday about vaccines, according to the Humanosphere blog. Gates called upon those in attendance and world leaders to commit to expanding the use of vaccines in recognition that they are the most powerful means for achieving health. “Vaccines are an extremely elegant technology,” Gates said. “They are inexpensive, easy to deliver and are proven to protect children from disease.

The HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) announced findings from HPTN 052, a study to evaluate the immediate versus delayed use of antiretroviral therapy by HIV-infected individuals on transmission to uninfected partners and health of the infected individual. The study showed that initiation of ART by HIV-­‐infected individuals substantially protected their HIV-­uninfected sexual partners from acquiring HIV infection, with a 96 percent reduction in risk of HIV transmission.

A research team led by Dr. Louis Picker at Oregon Health & Science University’s (OHSU) Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute published findings in Nature that produced a vaccine candidate that programs the immune system of non-human primates to respond more swiftly to the presence of a primate version of HIV than it normally would. Details of this advance are published in the advance online edition of Nature.

Following a scheduled interim review of data from the FEM-PrEP study of oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) using daily TDF/FTC (brand-name Truvada), the Independent Data Monitoring Committee (IDMC) advised that the FEM-PrEP study will be highly unlikely to be able to demonstrate the effectiveness of Truvada [emtricitabine (FTC) and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF)] in preventing HIV infection in the study population, even if it continued to its originally planned conclusion.

Europrise distributed its newsletter, see below to access the full newsletter.

The French National Agency for Research on AIDS and viral hepatitis (ANRS) and the University of Paris Est announce the creation of the Vaccine Research Institute (VRI), whose mission is to  conduct research to develop a vaccine against HIV/AIDS and HCV, following the award of the status of Laboratory of Excellence by the French Prime Minister in March 2011.  Read the full announcement below.