The CHAVI 4th Annual Retreat for investigators and lab staff was another success this past year with over 75 abstracts submitted and 350 attending participants.  Scientific highlights from this year’s meeting included presentations on transmitted SIV envs in rhesus macaques, rapid and early escape mutants selected by CD8 T cell responses to HIV, the genetic bottleneck in HIV subtype C infection, 454 sequencing technology, the CHAVI set point study, TRIMα in SIVmac infection, and a mechanism for regulatory T cell induction by HIV-activated dendritic cells. 

 

Presentations followed by teams in Viral Biology, Computational Biology, Structural Biology, B cell Immunity, T cell Immunity, Host Genetics, Vector/Immunogen Development, Innate Immunity, Mucosal Immunity, Non-Human Primate studies, and Clinical Research.

 

Plenary speaker Dr. Robert Siliciano of Johns Hopkins University spoke on the establishment of latency in HIV infection.  Plenary speaker Dr. Klas Kärre of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden spoke on the role of NK cells in control of viral infections.  Special lecturer Dr. Mary Carrington of the National Cancer Institute presented on the interactions among the -35 variant, HLA-C and the KIR loci in HIV infection.  Dr. Alan Bernstein, Director of the Global HIV/AIDS Vaccine Enterprise, was the keynote speaker during the dinner at the Carolina Club in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.  Dr. Bernstein’s presentation was “A View from the Bridge (of the Enterprise): A 360 degree Perspective on HIV Vaccine Research.”  A biography of Dr. Bernstein has just been published in the November/December 2008 IAVI Report.