I realize that my previous blog entry makes it sound as if HIV researchers are a complaining and bitter bunch. Far from it. They do complain, but they are also one of the friendliest and most unpretentious group of researchers anywhere. They can go from discussing how quickly HIV can wipe out the immune system to the latest in footwear and eyewear in a flash.

Last night was the finale of the HIV meeting — and may I just say, these scientists also know how to party.

Earlier in the week, bigwig HIV researcher Bruce Walker hosted his annual keystone bash. Here are a few things that should tell you it was a great party: there was much spilled drink; people sang Happy Birthday to Philip Goulder at midnight (it really was his birthday); everyone with a camera or cellphone snapped incriminating pictures of everyone else; one noted scientist was so falling down drunk that he really did fall down and had to be escorted home; and the police came — twice.

Last night's was almost a repeat performance, but the police didn't make an appearance — not that I know of anyway. In between their drunken revelry, these scientists also managed to put on one of the most interesting conferences I've ever been to. As per keystone rules, I can't really write about the specifics, but among the topics I found most interesting were those that delved into why sooty mangabey monkeys infected with SIV, the monkey version of HIV, never progress to a disease like AIDS and on elite controllers, a group of people who, despite being infected with HIV for more than a decade, have undetectable levels of the virus in their blood.

Figuring out what protects the monkeys or the elite controllers could be the key to a good vaccine. And this week's talks made me feel optimistic that at some point in my lifetime, even if not in the next 15 or 20 years, we'll know the answer.

Posted by Apoorva Mandavilli at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Straight from the TB meeting last week, I've been at a HIV keystone meeting all week that has two parallel tracks — one focusing on the molecular aspects of the disease and the other on strategies for making a vaccine.

The big question on everyone's lips is, why is no one from the biggest HIV vaccine project here?

In 2005, NIH created CHAVI, a $350 million behemoth led by a small group of scientists. With that kind of money at stake, particularly at a time when funding is tight, many scientists were understandably outraged — so much so that it seemed like it might split the field into bitter, warring factions.

This meeting tells me that sadly, it already has.

Last year, we reported researchers' fears that CHAVI was cutting into individual grants. Two years into CHAVI almost no one, including some people at the NIH, has anything good to say about it. The project has already taken up about $70 million, and judging by CHAVI leader Bart Haynes' presentation yesterday, doesn't have much that's new to show for it. Haynes says most of the first year went toward setting up collaborations and infrastructure — and that may be true. But why isn't his team here to share what they're doing with the rest of the field? Even Haynes flew in just for his talk and flew back the same night, which didn't really give people much time to interact with him or ask questions.

The coffee breaks are rife with rumors that even though four fabulous teams applied for the CHAVI grant, the NIH had decided months before who they would give the grant to — and that the decision was entirely political. People are also saying that any project grant that competes with CHAVI's domain automatically gets rejected.

This being a particularly gossipy community, there's little proof of any of this — grants may be getting rejected simply because these are tough times, for example — but it almost doesn't matter whether it's true. The point is, many of the scientists here are feeling betrayed by the NIH's decision to fund CHAVI and worse, afraid of what they see as its favoritism.

This cannot be good for the field. Far as I can see, if the NIH doesn’t soon make an effort to be more open — and more inclusive — about what CHAVI is doing, this important field will split into the CHAVits and the CHAV-nots.

Posted by Apoorva Mandavilli at 04:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)