Scientific Committee
Prof. Linos Vandekerckhove
HIV Cure Research Center, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
Prof. Linos Vandekerckhove completed his medical degree at the KU Leuven Medical School in 1998 and went on to earn his Ph.D. in 2006 at the Rega Institute in Leuven. He seamlessly integrated his training as an infectious disease specialist with doctoral research in the Molecular Virology laboratory at the KU Leuven in Belgium. This unique blend of clinical expertise and molecular virology has allowed him to bridge the gap between Clinical Infectious Diseases, particularly in the context of the AIDS clinic, and fundamental research in Molecular Virology. In 2008, Prof. Vandekerckhove was awarded a clinical fellowship from the Flanders Scientific Institute, which enabled him to establish a foundational HIV research laboratory at Ghent University. In 2010, recognizing the importance of advancing HIV cure research, he embarked on a journey to one of the leading research groups in the United States: the Gladstone Institute, working under the auspices of Eric Verdin and Warner Greene. In recent years, his research group has spearheaded a platform for comprehensive tissue sampling from HIV+ patients, employing techniques such as leukapheresis, lymph node excision, and gut biopsies, all in collaboration with a patient-driven ‘clinical research guiding group’. This pioneering initiative has gained recognition as a best practice in in-depth sampling. Within Europe, the group has been at the forefront of HIV quantification through dPCR platforms and has delved into extensive qualitative characterization of the viral reservoir.
Prof. Sarah Gerlo
HIV Cure Research Center, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
Sarah Gerlo is associate professor at the Ghent University Faculty of Medicine, where she teaches Molecular Biology, General Biochemistry and Cell-cell communication. Sarah obtained a PhD in neuro-immunology in 2005 at the Free University of Brussels and subsequently moved to Ghent University (LEGEST lab) to conduct postdoctoral research in the field of inflammatory cytokine biology. In 2011 she was appointed staff scientist in the VIB-UGent Center for Medical Biotechnology, where she was engaged in several translational technology-oriented projects. Since January 2020 Sarah is affiliated with the HIV Cure Research Center (HCRC), where she uses her broad expertise in cytokine biology to develop novel immunotherapeutic strategies towards HIV cure.
Prof. Zeger Debyser
KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Zeger Debyser (°1965) is Medical Doctor (KU Leuven, 1990). He obtained his PhD at the KU Leuven in 1994 for research on non-nucleoside RT inhibitors as anti-HIV agents with Prof. Dr. E. De Clercq as promoter at the Rega Institute. In 1992-1993, Dr. Debyser was a BAEF research fellow at the Harvard Medical School with Drs. C. Richardson and S. Tabor and studied T7 DNA replication. Between 1994 and 1997, a clinical virology training in the Leuven University Hospitals was undertaken. Since 2009, he is Full Professor at the KU Leuven. As a full professor at KU Leuven he heads a research group of 20 people with a major focus on HIV research and a minor focus on gene therapy and drug discovery. He acted as mentor of more than 20 PhD students, 7 of whom got faculty positions worldwide. His group is known for pioneering research on LEDGF/p75 as cofactor of HIV integrase. The lab also runs the Leuven Viral Vector Core (LVVC). He discovered LEDGINs as first-in-class inhibitors of integrase-LEDGF/p75 interaction. As an MD he has long standing collaborations with experts from different disciplines such as medicinal chemistry, biophysics and structural biology because these disciplines are complementary and required to translate the basic research. He has 262 peer reviewed publications, > 9500 citations, an h-index of 56 and is inventor on 16 patents or patent applications. In 2016 the research group received the Gold Medal of the Flemish Parliament for their contribution to Science and Innovation.
Prof. Carine Van Lint
University of Brussels (ULB), Brussels, Belgium
Carine Van Lint is Professor at the University of Brussels (ULB, Belgium) and Research Director of the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (F.N.R.S.). She is author and co-author of more than 130 international publications in the field of retrovirology and molecular biology. After performing her PhD thesis at the National Institutes of Health (NIH, Bethesda, USA) and a post-doctoral fellowship at the Picower Institute in New-York, she joined the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Brussels (ULB) as the Director of the Laboratory of Molecular Virology. Her research aims at studying the molecular and epigenetic mechanisms regulating transcriptional latency and reactivation from latency in three retroviruses: HIV-1 and two oncogenic retroviruses HTLV-I (human T cell leukemia/lymphoma virus type 1) and BLV (Bovine Leukemia Virus). Regarding HIV-1, one of the major objective of her laboratory is to design, based on transcriptional mechanisms, novel strategies to reduce the pool of latent reservoirs to a level bearable by the host immune system.
Dr. Maria Salgado
IrsiCaixa, Barcelona, Spain
Her scientific career has been focused on the study of HIV-1 pathogenesis and functional HIV cure models, with the ultimate goal of achieving a definitive cure for chronically HIV infected patients. She obtained my Ph.D. at the Cellular Biology and Genetics program of the Universidad Complutense of Madrid in March 2010 with maximum honors. After graduation, she continued studying the natural control of HIV infection as a postdoc at the laboratory of Dr. Siliciano and Dr. Blankson at the Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, USA). This collaboration with one of the most important laboratories in the field has yield 14 valuable publications. In 2012, she moved to the AIDS Research Institute IrsiCaixa opening her research interest to different HIV cure strategies and being part of the team that in 2019 and 2023 presented the second and third case of HIV remission in the world, the London and Dusseldorf Patient respectively. She has recently open a new research line focusing in the use of CAR-T cell therapy to eliminate the cells that harbor the HIV reservoir.
Prof. Sarah Fidler
Imperial College London and Imperial College NHS Trust, London, United Kingdom
I work as a clinical senior academic at Imperial College London, where my main focus of research is the strategic use of antiretroviral therapy and novel innovative therapies towards HIV remission. I led the SPARTAC trial, an international randomised trial testing the use of short course ART in acute infection, the findings of which led to a large cluster randomized trial amongst urban communities in Zambia and South Africa (HPTN 071 PopART) which tested the impact of a universal HIV test and treat program on HIV incidence. Through the HIV CHERUB UK collaboration, with colleagues in Oxford, Kings, Cambridge and UCL we have jointly led several observational studies exploring measures of the HIV reservoir and immune responses amongst people living with HIV (HEATHER, PITCH). We work very closely with community advocates and public engagement is a core part of the CHERUB consortium. More recently the collaboration has supported clinical trials of ART plus new therapies towards a cure for HIV. The RIVER trial explored a “kick and kill” approach amongst treated primary HIV infection and currently we are enrolling into a double blinded RCT testing HIV-specific broadly neutralizing antibodies (RIO) in partnership with the university of Oxford and Rockefeller. I provide clinical care to young adults with perinatally acquired HIV infection and a tertiary referral service for individuals with indeterminate HIV tests and spontaneous viral controllers.
Prof. Ole Søgaard
Aarhus University
Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark
Dr. Søgaard is an infectious disease physician at the Department of Infectious Diseases at Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark, and a professor at the Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University. After receiving his PhD in HIV epidemiology in 2011, he transitioned his research focus to experimental research in virus infections. In 2015-2016, Dr. Søgaard was a visiting researcher in the Nussenzweig Laboratory of Molecular Immunology at The Rockefeller University, New York. As a physician-scientist with extensive training both in basic science immunology/virology and clinical medicine. His research lab is focused on the understanding of virus pathogenesis and persistence, including clinical investigations into immune modulation therapies, broadly neutralizing antibodies, and reversal of HIV-1 latency.
Prof. Jan van Lunzen
UMC Hamburg, Germany and Radboudumc Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Jan van Lunzen, MD, PhD is a physician scientist with 30 years of experience in clinical research in HIV and viral hepatitis in academic and corporate settings. He has joined ViiV Healthcare as a Global Medical Director in July 2015 after a long-standing career in academia. He is Professor of Internal Medicine/Infectious Diseases at the University of Hamburg and served as the Medical Director of the Infectious Diseases Unit and was Head of the HIV Clinical Trial Unit and the HIV Immunology Research Laboratory at this institution until 2015. He received his Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene from the Bernhard-Nocht-Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg in 1992 and a PhD degree in Immunology from the University of Hamburg for his work on HIV pathogenesis in lymphoid tissues in 2004. From September 2018 until October 2022 he acted as Head of Translational Medical Research at ViiV Healthcare where he oversaw the transition of pipeline assets from discovery into early clinical development. He also served as the Chair of the Investigator Sponsored Study Program at ViiV Healthcare and was responsible for the external academic collaborations focusing on biomarkers and cure related research in pediatric, adolescent and adult populations. He was member of the R&D leadership team at ViiV Healthcare. He authored more than 220 peer reviewed publications and received numerous prestigious scientific awards. After resigning from ViiV in October 2022 he accepted a research professorship at the Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands. His work is focused on virus host interactions with a special interest in innate immunity and HIV cure related research. He also acts as a biomedical entrepreneur who co-founded a spin-off (Vision 7) which helped to develop assets for HIV cure (C34 peptide) and hepatitis B and delta superinfection (Hepcludex). The latter asset was acquired by Gilead Sciences in 2021 and has obtained market authorization in the EC and other countries with a final FDA approval still pending. He currently serves as a scientific board member of numerous cure related research consortia both public and private.
Prof. Rafick Sékaly
Emory University, Atlanta, United States
Rafick-Pierre Sekaly, PhD, is Professor and serves as Vice-Chair of Translational Medicine in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Sekaly is a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar. He is a member of the Cancer Immunology Research Program at Winship Cancer Institute. Dr. Sekaly is one of the world’s leading researchers focused on a cure for HIV/AIDS and has led fundamental work on the persistence of the HIV reservoir and progression of HIV infection. For clinical trials, he has partnered with companies using gene therapy to make immune cells resistant to HIV. Sekaly’s lab has also pioneered the use of comprehensive systems approaches to study immune memory and immune responses to vaccines. Dr. Sekaly’s focus on HIV disease immune pathogenesis, immune virology, and immunotherapies has generated pioneering findings that highlight the impact of HIV infection on thymic output, T cell memory, mechanisms of CD4 and CD8 T cell dysfunction, and on innate immunity and mechanisms of HIV persistence. He has also pioneered the use of transcriptomics and bioinformatics to identify predictors/correlates of immune responses that lead to protection from viral infections, including HIV, SIV and flaviviruses, protection from disease progression and successful immune interventions including adjuvants, licensed preventative, and therapeutic vaccines. He is the principal investigator on numerous grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the American Foundation for AIDS Research, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Gilead Sciences Incorporation, Merck Sharp & Dohme Corporation, and more. His research group has been continuously funded since 1988 by federal and nonfederal grants.
Organizing Committee
Karen Vervisch
HIV Cure Research Center, Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium
Karen Vervisch started working as a lab technician at the HCRC in 2010. Since 2015, she has been responsible for organizing annual events such as an international HIV symposium, HIV wokrshop, and various events for HIV Ontrafelen, the fund that supports the HCRC. As lab manager, she is responsible for the daily practical organization of the HIV Cure Research Center.
Evy Blomme
HIV Cure Research Center, Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium
Evy joined the HCRC lab as project manager in December 2021. Following her master’s in Drug development, she obtained her PhD in Health Sciences, focusing on the role of innate lymphoid cells in occupational asthma and COPD. During a research stay in Newcastle, Australia, she studied innate lymphoid cells in viral-induced COPD exacerbation. Now she coordinates the analysis of the viral reservoir in the 2000 HIV Human Functional Genomics Partnership Program and in the Rumba study (2DR vs 3DR in a prospective randomized controlled switch trial).