Welcome Event Keynote Speaker

Mario Roederer, PhD: Developing the NHP AIDS model for antibody-based interventions

Dr. Roederer received his B.S. in chemistry in 1983 from Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, California, followed by his Ph.D. in biological sciences in 1988 from Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, in the laboratory of Dr. Robert Murphy. He trained as a postdoctoral fellow and then as a research fellow at Stanford University from 1988 to 1999 in the laboratory of Dr. Leonard Herzenberg. Following this, he was adjunct associate professor, department of Stomatology, University of California, San Francisco, until 2000, when he joined the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) at NIH. He is a senior investigator and is Chief of ImmunoTechnology Section, director of the Flow Cytometry Core, and director of the Nonhuman Primate Immunogenicity Core. Dr. Roederer has co-authored six patents, five software titles in worldwide use, and more than 300 papers with over 48,000 citations. The choice of Dr. Roederer as Keynote Speaker is in line with the theme of the meeting; his research combines cutting-edge technology development in the setting of single cell analysis (integrating both flow cytometry and transcriptomics), with basic T and B cell immunology. Over the past two decades, he led the effort to the development of the state-of-the-art 30+ color flow cytometry, and has produced several seminal publications demonstrating the highly translational value of the rhesus macaque/SIV model for AIDS research. Basic research projects include T cell dynamics during HIV or SIV infection; the definition of the complete repertoire of functions elicited by vaccines and pathogens; characterization of memory stem cells for generation and maintenance of long-term T cell memory; mucosal delivery of vaccines for use in influenza, RSV, and TB; and understanding the antigenic heterogeneity of HIV/SIV Env to develop protective antibodies.

Banquet Speaker

Alan Schultz, PhD: Impact of NHP Model(s) on AIDS Vaccines – and vice versa

Dr. Schultz received an undergraduate degree in Chemistry from the University of Rochester, a Ph.D. in Biology from the Johns Hopkins University, and later worked in Dr. Robert Gallo’s laboratory, where he was introduced to the field of retrovirology. More recently, he completed 30 years in AIDS vaccine development, the first 10 years of which were at the Division of AIDS, devoted to stimulating and fostering NHP models for AIDS and their application to vaccine development and forging the initial funding structures to provide money to the extramural community. There followed ten years at IAVI utilizing NHP for translational and developmental research, capped with a final 10 years returning to DAIDS to continue encouraging and facilitating vaccine research and challenge studies in NHP.

The foundation for this history was postdoctoral studies on SV40 and then the stint in the Gallo laboratory, further refined by 11 years at NCI-Frederick studying the viral proteins and oncoproteins of retroviruses (of mice, cats, cows, primates and humans) and their post-translational modifications in Stephen Oroszlan‘s laboratory, which did the first amino acid sequence from an AIDS virus protein. It was frustration that SIV was initially being ignored that led him to leave Frederick and join the newly-formed NIAID AIDS Program in 1988.