World AIDS Day 2024
Meet Our Speakers
Dr. Weiming Tang
Associate Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA;
Dr. Weiming Tang is an Associate Professor of UNC Chapel Hill , the Co-Director of UNC Project-China, and the Advisor of SESH Global. His training background is in the field of epidemiology, with an emphasis on HIV/STI epidemiology, study design, and data analysis. His research focuses on promoting HIV/STI testing and healthy behavior change among key populations.
Specifically, he is interested in using crowdsourcing and other participatory methods to enhance health services. He has also co-authored more than 330 peer-reviewed publications.
Dr. Xueling Wu
Associate Professor, Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, USA;
Dr. Xueling Wu graduated from Tongji Medical College with a bachelor's degree in medicine and the University of Alabama at Birmingham with a PhD in Microbiology, studying systemic and mucosal antibodies to HIV. Xueling completed a postdoctorate with Julie Overbaugh at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, where she examined the role of neutralizing antibodies in mother-to-child transmission of HIV and isolated the clade A Env BG505. In 2006, Xueling joined John Mascola's lab at NIAID Vaccine Research Center, where she isolated the broadly neutralizing antibody VRC01. In 2013, Xueling joined the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center as a faculty member, where she continued her work on HIV antibodies.
Since 2020, Xueling has been an Associate Professor at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, Columbia University Medical Center, where she obtained multiple NIH-funded programs, of which one investigates HIV IgA antibodies. In December 2024, Xueling will move to Boston University School of Medicine to continue her pursuit of developing secretory IgA for mucosal-targeted prevention of HIV. Over the years, Xueling has fostered a wide range of collaborations, served with NIH study sections and scientific journals, and contributed to more than 50 scientific publications.
Prof. Dr. Seth Pincus
Research Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Montana State University, USA;
Prof. Dr. Seth Pincus is a board-certified pediatrician but has devoted his career to the study and application of therapeutic antibodies. He is currently using antibodies to attack reservoirs of persistent virus infection—the topic of his talk in this webinar—and to protect against bioterrorist events.
In the past, he studied why HIV vaccines fail to produce effective antibodies and showed the efficacy of antibodies for the treatment of neonatal infections in animal models.
Prof. Dr. Samuel Friedman
Research Professor, Department of Population Health and Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, USA;
After 11 years as a sociology professor, Samuel Friedman moved into HIV research in 1983. He did this at the National Development and Research Institutes until he moved to NYU GSOM in 2019. As an HIV researcher, much of his research has been on how the virus spreads through communities, the sociopolitical conditions that make such spread more likely, and innovative ways through which people at risk can protect themselves and each other. Most of this research focused on people who use drugs, and as part of it, Samuel did what little he could to help PWUD organize themselves locally, nationally, and globally to protect each other.
Samuel has also engaged in research with sexual minority men and women, with sex workers, and with others at risk, across a wide range of countries. His deepest engagements have been in New York and other North American localities, Spain, Brazil, the United Kingdom, and Australia and, in the 21st century, Argentina, Greece, Ukraine, and South Africa. Much of his effort over the last ten years has concerned network approaches to prevention and the impact of Big Events on communities at risk and how they might prepare to react to such events.
Dr. Frank Maldarelli
Head, Clinical Retrovirology Section,
HIV Dynamics and Replication Program,
Center for Cancer Research,
National Cancer Institute-Frederick, NIH, USA;
Frank Maldarelli received his Ph.D. from the City University of New York and his M.D. from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. After completing his residency in internal medicine at the Columbia–Presbyterian Hospital, New York, he joined the Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) as a Medical Staff Fellow under Klaus Strebel and Malcolm Martin and subsequently completed his clinical infectious disease training at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In 1998, Dr. Maldarelli joined the In Vivo Biology Group in the HIV Drug Resistance Program, now known as the HIV Dynamics and Replication Program (DRP), in the National Cancer Institute (NCI), where he currently heads the Clinical Retrovirology Section of the DRP.
Dr. Maldarelli is also an Attending Physician on the NIAID/CCMD HIV service. His primary research interest is the in vivo pathogenesis of HIV during long-term antiretroviral therapy, including the mechanisms of persistence, clonal expansion, anatomic distribution, and the emergence of drug resistance in populations of HIV-infected cells. He presently serves as the head of the NCI Primate Scientific Review Committee, as well as the Director of the NIH OxCam Medical Scientist Partnership Program.
Dr. Eric O. Freed
Director, HIV Dynamics and Replication Program
Center for Cancer Research
National Cancer Institute, NIH, USA;
After holding an investigator position in 2002, Dr. Freed joined the HIV Drug Resistance Program (HIV DRP, renamed the HIV Dynamics and Replication Program in 2015) as Head of the Virus–Cell Interaction Section in 2003 and was appointed to the NCI Senior Biomedical Research Service in 2011.
Dr. Freed was later appointed Deputy Director of the HIV DRP in 2014 and Director of the Program in 2015. He was an organizer of the 2004 Cold Spring Harbor Meeting on Retroviruses, 2006 ASCB Conference "Cell Biology of HIV-1 and Other Retroviruses", 2012 Keystone Symposium "Frontiers in HIV Pathogenesis, Therapy and Eradication", 2014 Keystone Symposium "The Ins and Outs of Viral Infection: Entry, Assembly, Exit and Spread", Viruses 2016 Conference "At the Forefront of Virus–Host Interactions", Viruses 2018 Conference "Breakthroughs in Virus Replication", 2018 gp41 Cytoplasmic Tail Structure and Function Workshop, and Viruses 2020 “Novel Concepts in Virology”. He also served on the Scientific Committee of the International Retroviral Nucleocapsid Protein and Assembly Symposium in 2013, 2016, and 2019 and the Organizing Committee of the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Virology in 2018.
He has served as co-organizer of the Annual HIV DRP Conference and Annual David Derse Memorial Lecture and Award since 2012 and organizer of the Annual George Khoury Memorial Lecture since 2014. Dr. Freed is the founding Editor-in-Chief of Viruses and was appointed Editor of Journal of Molecular Biology in 2012 and Editor of Recent Advances in HIV-1 Assembly and Release in 2013.
Join us for MDPI’s World AIDS Day 2024 Webinar on Monday, 02 December 2024, as we gather voices from around the world to inspire impactful change in HIV prevention, care, and treatment. This year, we are thrilled to host renowned medical experts and practitioners who will deliver powerful and thought-provoking presentations, shedding light on the latest advancements and innovations in the field.
With the theme “Collective Action: Sustain and Accelerate HIV Progress”, our webinar will be a unique opportunity to come together, share ideas, and inspire collective action for a brighter future. Mark your calendars, and do not miss this chance to be part of a movement dedicated to advancing global health.
Date: 02 December 2024
Webinar ID: 860 1125 9149
Time: 3:00 pm (CET) | 9:00am (EST)
Webinar Secretariat: journal.webinar@mdpi.com
Vaccines
“Neutralizing Antibodies and Vaccine Development Against the HIV-1 Virus”
Edited by Ann Jones Hessell, Pooja Khatkar and Qingsheng Li
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2025
Cells
“Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Simian Immunodeficiency Virus and Host Interactions”
Edited by Nongthombam Boby and Susanta Pahari
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2025
Life
“Emerging Knowledge on Human Immunodeficiency Virus”
Edited by Giota Lourida and Dimitrios Paraskevis
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 22 July 2025
Tropical Medicine and Infections Disease
“Adolescent HIV Care and Transition Strategies: Challenges, Outcomes, and Interventions”
Edited by Brian C. Zanoni
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 March 2025.
Pathogens
“Editorial Board Members’ Collection Series: HIV and Viral Co-infections”
Edited by Nicola Coppola and Schuyler van Engelenburg
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 May 2025
“HIV/AIDS: Epidemiology, Drug Resistance, Treatment and Prevention”
Edited by Marta Pingarilho, Mafalda N. S. Miranda and Ana Barroso Abecasis
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2024