Chris Beyrer MD, MPH, is the Desmond M. Tutu Professor of Public Health and Human Rights at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland. He is a Professor of Epidemiology, International Health, Health, Behavior and Society, Nursing, and Medicine. He serves as Director of Johns Hopkins Training Program in HIV Epidemiology and Prevention Science and as Founding Director of the Center for Public Health and Human Rights. He is the Associate Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) and of the University’s Center for Global Health. He currently serves as a member of the MSM Working Group of the HIV Prevention Trials Network. He has extensive experience in conducting international collaborative research and training programs in HIV/AIDS and other infectious disease epidemiology, in infectious disease prevention research, HIV among Key Populations, and in health and human rights.

As Director of the Johns Hopkins Fogarty AITRP Program, Dr. Beyrer provided fellowships for over 1,400 international scholars in HIV.AIDS prevention, research, and treatment. He served as Field Director of the Thai PAVE and HIVNET studies from 1992-1996, based in Chiang Mai, norther Thailand, and has done extensive research in the epidemiology of HIV in Thailand, Burma, China, India and across Southeast Asia; in Russia and Kazakhstan, in Malawi, South Africa, and the US. He is the author of the 1998 book War in the Blood: Sex Politics and AIDS in Southeast Asia and Co-Editor of Public Health and Human Rights: Evidence-Based Approaches. Dr. Beyrer has served as advisor to the PEPFAR Program, the HIV Vaccine Trials Network, the Office of AIDS Research of the US NIH, the US Military HIV Research Program, the World Bank, the Royal Thai Army Medical Corps and the Thai Red Cross, as well as numerous other organizations. Prof. Beyrer was elected to membership in the U.S. National Academy of Medicine in 2014.

Professor Elizabeth A. Bukusi (ObGyn), MPH, PhD, PGD (Research Ethics), Masters in Bioethics, CIP, FAAS, earned her general medical degree and Masters in Obstetrics and Gynecology degree from the University of Nairobi. She then earned a certificate in international health, MPH and a PhD from the University of Washington’s Department of Epidemiology; a post graduate diploma in Research Ethics from the University of Cape Town and a Masters in Bioethics from Centre for Bioethics and Culture at the Sind Institute of Urology and Transplantation in Karachi. She is a certified IRB Professional. She is a Chief Research Officer at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), a Research Professor at the University of Washington (Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Global health), an honorary lecturer at Aga Khan University in Nairobi (Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology) and Volunteer Clinical faculty – Professor at the University of California San Francisco (Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences). Her primary areas of interest in research focus on sexually transmitted infections, reproductive health, and HIV prevention, care and treatment and she has a keen interest in research and clinical ethics/research regulatory systems.

She is a member of the Kenya National AIDS Control Council HIV prevention Task force and a member of the Board of Management of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC). She is also a board member of AVAC. She serves on the Advisory Board of International Centre for Reproductive Health (ICRH), is a trustee for the HIV Trust, and an Elected Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences (FAAS).

Dr. Carl W. Dieffenbach is the Director of the Division of AIDS at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health. Under his leadership, the Division supports a global research portfolio to advance biological knowledge of HIV/AIDS, its related co-infections, and co-morbidities. With the ultimate goal of creating an “AIDS-free Generation,” the Division develops and supports the infrastructure and biomedical research needed to: 1) halt the spread of HIV through the development of an effective vaccine and biomedical prevention strategies that are safe and desirable; 2) develop novel approaches for the treatment and cure of HIV infection; 3) treat and/or prevent co-infections such as tuberculosis, and co-morbidities of greatest significance; and 4) foster partnerships with scientific and community stakeholders to develop and implement effective interventions. Dr. Dieffenbach received his bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Maryland in 1976 and his PhD in biophysics from The Johns Hopkins University in 1984.

Guido Ferrari MD is Associate Professor at Duke University in the Department of Surgery and Molecular Genetics and Microbiology. He is also affiliated faculty at the Duke Global Health Institute, Duke Human Vaccine Institute, and Honorary Professor at the University of Cape Town Department of Immunology. Since 1995, Dr. Ferrari has been evaluating vaccine-induced cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) and antibody dependent cellular cytotoxic (ADCC) responses for the HIV Vaccine Trial Network (HVTN) where he is currently Director of the ADCC Laboratory. Dr. Ferrari has also been the Director of the ADCC core laboratory for the Comprehensive Antibody-Vaccine Immune Monitoring Consortium (CA-VIMC) and for the Primate AIDS Vaccine Evaluation Group (PAVEG). He was the first to characterize vaccine-induced cross-clade clade CD8 CTL responses and the difference in class I-restricted epitope recognition between individuals with HIV-1 infection and vaccine recipients. Subsequent to this initial epitope mapping of cellular responses, he utilized epitope mapping of ADCC responses to identify the anti-C1C2 epitope as the most recognized epitope by ADCC Ab responses in individuals with HIV. Dr. Ferrari has organised over 10 symposia to strengthen collaborations amongst young scientists from limited-resource countries.

Jill Gilmour leads IAVI’s Human Immunology Laboratory, located at Imperial College London, where she is a professor of medicine. She also leads IAVI’s clinical laboratory program, overseeing research strategy, immune monitoring, data quality, and laboratory capacity building to support international HIV vaccine trials and epidemiology studies.

Gilmour has more than 20 years of experience in research and development. She is a founder and scientific director of VISTA (Vaccine Immunology Science and Technology for Africa). In this capacity, she develops strategic partnerships to encourage collaboration, technology transfer, and training for scientists across Europe, the U.S., Africa, and India to enable the design and assessment of HIV vaccine candidates. She supported the development of the cellular immunology laboratory at the Medical Research Council/Uganda Virus Research Institute Unit on AIDS.

She holds a BSc. and a PhD from the University of Edinburgh, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship with the U.K. Medical Research Council Direct Program of AIDS Research.

Maureen M. Goodenow, PhD, was appointed Associate Director for AIDS Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Director of the NIH Office of AIDS Research (OAR) in 2016. In these roles, Dr. Goodenow coordinates the NIH HIV/AIDS research agenda and works across Federal agencies and the NIH to end the HIV pandemic and improve the health of people with HIV. In addition, she is Chief of the Molecular HIV Host Interactions Laboratory at the NIH. Dr. Goodenow previously served as the Acting Director of the Office for Research and Science within the U.S. Department of State, Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator and Office of Global Health Diplomacy from 2015 to 2016. As a Senior Science Advisor in the Office of Economic Policy’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, she also received the prestigious Jefferson Science Fellowship.

Prior to government service, Dr. Goodenow was a Professor of Pathology, Immunology, and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Florida, Gainesville, where she held the Stephany W. Holloway University Endowed Chair for AIDS Research. She also was the Director of the Center for Research in Pediatric Immune Deficiency Diseases and has trained more than 50 next-generation scientists and published more than 100 articles. Dr. Goodenow received her undergraduate degree in Biology from Fordham University and her PhD in Molecular Genetics from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Beatriz Grinsztejn is an Infectious Disease physician-researcher. She has dedicated her career to HIV/AIDS patient care and research. With fellow colleagues, she established the FIOCRUZ HIV/AIDS Service, which is currently the largest care provider in Rio de Janeiro. Since 1999, she has served as the Director of the HIV/AIDS Clinical Research Unit at the Evandro Chagas National Institute of Infectious Diseases – FIOCRUZ in RJ, Brazil. Additionally, she has been the Principal Investigator (PI) for a clinical trials unit for the past 13 years. She has established strong partnerships with the NIAID-NIH networks HPTN, ACTG and CCASAnet, the ANRS, the Canadian HIV Clinical Trials Network, the Kirby Institute and the Cost-Effectiveness of Preventing AIDS Complications (CEPAC) Group. She has served in several technical and leadership roles. In the ACTG and HPTN NIAIDNIH networks she has been a member of the Executive Committee and various scientific committees related to ART, Women’s Health and MSM research. She is the Brazil PI for The Caribbean, Central and South America network for HIV epidemiology (CCASAnet) collaboration, which created a shared repository of HIV data from sites in these regions. She is a member of the Brazilian Ministry of Health ART and PrEP Advisory Committees, PAHO Technical Advisory Committee and PrEP Task Force. She is a member of the UNAIDS Expert Panel and served on the WHO ART Guidelines Panel.

She has contributed to advance the science on HIV prevention and treatment and has led or participated in seminal global research studies, such as HPTN 052, iPrEX, START, Reflate TB, the Opposites Attract Study and HPTN 077. She is the co-Chair of the HPTN 083 study to evaluate injectable cabotegravir for PrEP in HIV-uninfected MSM and TGW. She is the PI of the PrEP Brazil demonstration study, which provided data to support PrEP incorporation into the Brazilian Public Health System as a Public Health Policy. She is the Director of the first established Transgender Health Clinic in Rio de Janeiro, which provides gender affirmative care and prevention services and the PI for the PrEParadas study, the first Brazil-based PrEP demonstration study dedicated to TGW.

She is the Brazil co-PI for the imPrEP Study, a multi-national UNITAID-funded demonstration/implementation study aimed at expanding PrEP in Brazil, Peru and Mexico. She has contributed to numerous publications and has over 300 peer-reviewed scientific publications. As a Professor of the Infectious Diseases Clinical Research Postgraduate Program at FIOCRUZ, she has mentored more than 25 Masters and PhD students.

Catherine Hankins MD PhD FRCPC CM is Deputy Director (Science), Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development (AIGHD); Professor of Public and Population Health, McGill University, Montreal; and Honorary Professor, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. As Chief Scientific Adviser to UNAIDS (2002-2012), she led its scientific knowledge translation team focused on ensuring ethical and participatory biomedical HIV prevention trial conduct, convening mathematical modelling teams, and supporting country implementation of proven biomedical HIV prevention modalities. She chairs EDCTP’s (European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership) Scientific Advisory Committee and USA NIH (National Institutes of Health) HPTN’s (HIV Prevention Trials Network) Scientific Advisory Group. Since 2014, Dr. Hankins is Scientific Chair and Chair, Organising Committee of the annual AIGHD/VE INTEREST conference http://interestconference.org/. Her current scientific interests include implementation science, novel biomedical HIV prevention, and participatory research conduct for HIV and emerging pathogens. Professor Hankins was named to the Order of Canada in 2013.

Sharon L. Hillier, PhD, is a microbiologist whose research has focused on understanding both the preventive and causative roles that certain microorganisms in the vagina have with respect to genital tract infections, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV, and pre-term birth; and on the evaluation of topical microbicides for prevention of STIs. At the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Hillier is the Richard Sweet Professor of Reproductive Infectious Disease and vice chair for faculty affairs in the department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences. In addition, she holds secondary appointments in the department of microbiology and molecular genetics.

Dr. Hillier has been recognized twice by the American Sexually Transmitted Diseases Association (ASTDA) as the recipient of the ASTDA Achievement Award in 1996 and the Thomas Parran Award in 2009. She served as chair of the NIH Office of AIDS Research (OAR) Advisory Council from 2010-2013, and on NIH’s AIDS Research Advisory Council from 2014-2018.

Eric Hunter, PhD, is Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Emory University, Atlanta, GA. He is Co-Director of the Emory Centre for AIDS Research and a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar. For the past several years his laboratory has investigated the molecular virological mechanisms underlying HIV transmission among heterosexual couples living in Rwanda (Project San Francisco) and Zambia (ZEHRP) with an aim toward developing novel vaccine approaches that might prevent this transmission event. Recently this work has expanded to develop an understanding of the role virus and host immune responses play in defining the rate and severity of HIV-1 disease progression.

His bibliography includes over 250 articles, reviews and book chapters. He has been the recipient of four NIH merit awards for his work on retrovirus molecular biology. After serving as Editor in Chief of the journal AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses for 10 years, he currently serves on the Editorial boards of several academic journals, and on the external advisory committees for several academic and commercial institutions, and NIH Institutes.

Jerome Kim, M.D. Director-General of the International Vaccine Institute (IVI), is an international expert on the evaluation and development of vaccines. His depth and breadth of scientific experience spans basic research through advanced clinical development. IVI’s oral cholera vaccine, prequalified by Sanofi and EuBiologics, is used around the world to prevent this deadly diarrheal disease. IVI’s typhoid conjugate vaccine is entering Phase III testing by SK Chemicals and PT Bio Farma.

Dr. Kim was Principal Deputy and Chief, Laboratory of Molecular Virology and Pathogenesis in the U.S. Military HIV Research Program (MHRP) and also served as the Project Manager for the HIV Vaccines and Advanced Concepts Evaluation Project Management Offices, U.S. Army Medical Materiel Development Activity, Fort Detrick, MD. He led the Army’s Phase III HIV vaccine trial (RV144) which was the first demonstration that an HIV vaccine could protect against infection, as well as subsequent studies that identified laboratory correlates and HIV sequence changes associated with vaccination. Dr. Kim’s research interests include HIV molecular epidemiology, host genetics, and HIV vaccine development. He has authored over 160 publications and received the John Maher Award for Research Excellence from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in 2013. Dr. Kim is also an Adjunct Professor of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

He is a graduate of the University of Hawaii, with high honors in History and highest honors in Biology; and received his MD degree from Yale University School of Medicine.

Dr. Kelika Konda is an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles and Research Associate at Cayetano Heredia University in Lima, Peru. She has lived and worked in Lima since 2004 focusing on HIV and STI prevention research with gay men and transgender women.

Dr. Konda received her PhD in Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. At UPCH Dr. Konda works at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Sexuality, Society, and AIDS. Dr. Konda has published more than 65 peer-reviewed articles on HIV/STI epidemiology, sexuality and sexual behavior, gay couples, and sero-disclosure.

Dr. Landovitz received his AB in Chemistry from Princeton University (Princeton, New Jersey, USA), and received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School (Boston, Massachusetts, USA). Following this, he completed an internship, residency, and served as Chief Resident in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (Boston, Massachusetts, USA) and an Infectious Diseases fellowship with Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston, Massachusetts, USA). He served as Medical Co-Director of the Vietnam-CDC-Harvard Medical School-AIDS-Partnership (VCHAP), helping to train Vietnamese physicians in HIV care and treatment. In 2006 he joined the UCLA Center for Clinical AIDS Research and Education (CARE), where he is an infectious disease and HIV clinician and clinical investigator.

His research interests include HIV prevention (including pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis and other combination prevention strategies) and the impact of such prevention interventions on risk behavior. Dr. Landovitz works with the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Division of AIDS Clinical trials networks for HIV therapeutics and HIV Prevention. He has led numerous clinical trials, and currently leads the NIH trials developing long-acting injectable cabotegravir for HIV prevention. In 2010, he was awarded the John Carey Young Investigator Award by the AIDS Clinical Trials Group in 2010, and the American Association of HIV Medicine Research Award in 2017. Dr. Landovitz has authored over 100 publications, including articles in the journal AIDS, The New England Journal of Medicine, PLoS Medicine, and the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Jean-Daniel Lelièvre received his MD in Internal Medicine in 2002 (University Paris VII) and his PhD in immunology in 2002 (University Paris VII). He is professor in clinical immunology since 2010 and head the department of clinical immunology and infectious diseases of Henri Mondor’s hospital and the team 16 of INSERM U955.

His basic research was focused on T cell apoptosis during HIV infection during his PhD (under the supervision of Pr JC Ameisen) and moved after on the biology of Treg during HIV infection and basic aspects of T-cell development (role of Notch and IL7) and their disturbance during HIV infection. Pr JD Lelièvre conducted several clinical trials in the field of immune-based therapies of HIV or vaccinology (role of treatment optimization with anti CCR5 in late diagnosis HIV + patients; role of raltegravir during kidney transplantation, IL7 treatment during HIV infection). For several years, his research and expertise activity has been refocused on the field of vaccinology.

He is in the charge of the clinical core of the VRI (Vaccine Research Institute) and of the WP 8 (prophylactic vaccine) of EHVA (European HIV Vaccine Alliance) both of which aim to promote a comprehensive approach to the development of an effective HIV vaccine. In addition, his activities in the field of vaccines include the responsibility of a WP within the EU-JAV (European Joint Action on Vaccination) and national and international expertise activities, particularly within the WHO IVIR-AC.

Kathleen (Kate) MacQueen is a Senior Scientist in Global Health Research at FHI 360. She has conducted extensive research on the social, behavioral and ethical aspects of biomedical HIV prevention trials globally and domestically in the United States, including vaccines, microbicides, vaginal rings and pre-exposure prophylaxis. Community engagement and partnership-building is a key component of her work.

Domestically MacQueen has led participatory research projects focused on understanding and addressing HIV and other health disparities in Durham, North Carolina. She also has extensive collaborative international research experience, including in Cameroon, Ghana, Lesotho, Nigeria, South Africa, Thailand and Vietnam. She has worked with a diverse range of populations including gay/bisexual men, drug users, and African Americans to understand community perspectives on HIV vaccine trials; injection drug users in Bangkok to assess their willingness to participate in vaccine research; and women in diverse African settings to understand social, cultural and gender dynamics in their use of HIV prevention products.

MacQueen has a PhD in anthropology from Binghamton University, an MPH in health behavior from Emory University, and holds adjunct associate professorships at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the School of Medicine and the Gillings School of Public Health. She is also the Developmental Core director for the UNC Center for AIDS Research, and is a member of the editorial board for the Journal of the International AIDS Society.

Dr. Mayer trained in Internal Medicine at Beth Israel Hospital and in Infectious Diseases and Molecular Epidemiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. As the founding Medical Research Director of Fenway Health, he created a community health research program that has developed an international reputation for its capability to conduct community-based research.

He is currently a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, a Professor in Global Health and Population at the Harvard TC Chan School of Public Health, and Attending Physician and Director of HIV Prevention Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital.

Starting in 1994, he has been a site Principal Investigator of NIH-funded HTVN, HPTN, MTN, and ATN clinical trials units, focusing on bio-behavioral HIV prevention research, and a member of the scientific leadership of HPTN and HVTN. He has co-authored more than 800 peer-reviewed publications, co-authored the first text on AIDS for the general public and has co-edited 5 academic texts. He has served on the national boards of amfAR, HIVMA, and GLMA, was a member of the CDC/HRSA HIV/AIDS Advisory Committee, and was a member of the Governing Council of the International AIDS Society.

He is an Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the International AIDS Society, and serves on the PEPFAR Scientific Advisory Board.

Nyaradzo Mgodi, MBChB, MMed, is a Clinical Pathologist and Principal Investigator at the University of Zimbabwe College of Health Sciences Clinical Trials Research Centre. She has over 12 years’ experience in the conduct of National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded clinical trials; focusing mainly on topical microbicides, oral PrEP, intra-vaginal rings, long-acting injectable PrEP, multi-purpose prevention technologies and broadly neutralizing antibodies for HIV prevention in women. She is the protocol co-chair for the Microbicide Trials Network MTN-025 (HOPE) protocol as well as co-chair for AMP, a study being conducted under the auspices of the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) and HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN). She has been investigator of record (IoR) on several MTN and HPTN protocols. She served as a technical advisor for the Zimbabwe Population-based HIV Impact Assessment (ZIMPHIA) survey and as HIVR4P 2018 Program Organizing Committee member.

Dr. Mgodi is also a member of the HPTN Executive Committee, a Scientific Committee member for the 2019 International Workshop on HIV & Adolescence, and a Portfolio Management Advisory Committee (PMAC) member for CONRAD’s Project NIX HIV: Next-Generation Products for Prevention of HIV Infection in Women. She currently serves as a scientific reviewer for the Zimbabwe National Health Research and Development Committee and as a member of the Policy and Implementation Steering Committee for the Global Evaluation of Microbicide Sensitivity (GEMS) project. GEMS is a project that aims to inform policies and define programmatic considerations related to use of ARV-based HIV-prevention products and risk of resistance.

Michaela Müller-Trutwin studied Biology at the University in Bonn (Germany) and obtained her PhD from Paris University in the Barré-Sinoussi lab. She worked in West and Central Africa.

She holds the position of Associate Professor and head of the “HIV, Inflammation and Persistence” Unit at Institut Pasteur and is the Vice-President of the Institut Pasteur Scientific Council. She also serves as the President of the Coordinated Action on HIV Basic research at the ANRS and as member of the Steering Committee of the IDMIT Center dedicated to the development of therapies and vaccines against infectious diseases.

She has been for many years the Chair of the ANRS “Nonhuman primate models for HIV” working group. Her work has been honored by several awards, such as by the French Medical Research Foundation. Her studies contributed to the better understanding of the non-pathogenic SIV infection in natural hosts. Her work is currently focused on innate immune responses and inflammation during early HIV and SIV infections with the ultimate goal to provide novel insights into protective host immune responses and mechanisms of viral reservoir control.

Dr. Lilian Benjamin Mwakyosi is a young woman and a community advocate who attained her Bachelor of Medicine Degree in 2017 at Hubert Kairuki Memorial University based in Dar es salaam, Tanzania. Lilian served as the first ever AVAC FELLOW (2018) from Tanzania advocating for inclusion of the voices of Adolescent Girls and Young Women from planning to implementation of PrEP (Pre Exposure Prophylaxis) and HIV self-test through the country’s initial processes towards rolling out both interventions and expansion of HIV prevention options and choices for young women.

Prior to her fellowship endeavors, Lilian was volunteering at TAYOA (Tanzania Youth Alliance) as a peer educator and a freelance counselor at a national health hotline providing information, counseling and referral services to clients on disease prevention since 2014. She also served as a differentiated care youth champion under the International AIDS Society (IAS) in 2017 advocating for differentiated ART delivery models for young people living with HIV in Tanzania.

Due to her outstanding leadership role, Lilian was selected as one of Women Deliver Young Leaders (Class of 2018/19) advocating for integration of HIV and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights services for young women. As an aspiring Research Scientist, she strongly believes in meaningful engagement of young people as a game-changer in the community’s HIV Prevention, Care and Treatment interventions and research towards ending AIDS by 2030.

Thumbi Ndung’u is the Deputy Director (Science) and a Max Planck Research Group Leader at the Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI) in Durban, South Africa. He is Professor and Victor Daitz Chair in HIV/TB Research at the Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine, University of KwaZulu-Natal. He holds the South African Research Chair in Systems Biology of HIV/AIDS. He is an Adjunct Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He is the Programme Director of the Sub-Saharan African Network for TB/HIV Research Excellence (SANTHE), a research and capacity building initiative funded by the Wellcome Trust. He graduated with a Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine degree from the University of Nairobi, Kenya, and obtained a PhD in Biological Sciences in Public Health from Harvard University, United States. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Virology at Harvard Medical School. He is a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa and a fellow of the African Academy of Sciences. He is on the advisory board of the Global Health and Vaccination Research Programme (GLOBVAC), The Research Council of Norway, and is a member of the External Advisory Board of the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN).

His research interests are host-pathogen interactions, particularly immune mechanisms of HIV and TB control. He has co-authored numerous manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals. He has received grant funding from the South African National Research Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Wellcome Trust among others. He is leading a multidisciplinary team of researchers working in the fields of HIV and TB immunopathogenesis, vaccine development and immune-based HIV functional cure strategies. He has special interest in capacity building for biomedical research in Africa.

Jim Pickett is Senior Director of Prevention Advocacy and Gay Men’s Health at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, where he has worked since 2004. He leads the global advocacy group IRMA (International Rectal Microbicide Advocates, formed in 2005) and is passionate about supporting a range of choices in the HIV prevention research pipeline to meet the diverse needs of vulnerable communities around the world. Additionally, he leads the Illinois PrEP Working Group, directs Chicago’s globally acclaimed PrEP4Love social marketing and community mobilization campaign, and conducts PrEP trainings for the HIV workforce.

POZ Magazine has honored him in three of their “Top 100” lists, calling him a “soldier… instrumental in fighting for much-needed new prevention methods, undeterred by subjects many would prefer to ignore.” He has been living with HIV since 1995.

Professor Damian Purcell is the Theme Leader for Viral Infectious Diseases at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, University of Melbourne, where he is also Head of the Molecular Virology Laboratory in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. After receiving a PhD from the University of Melbourne in 1987 he was an NHMRC fellow at the LMM, NIAID, NIH, USA in 1989 – 95. He returned to Melbourne’s Burnet Institute in 1995 then the University of Melbourne in 2001. He studies RNA-mediated control of HIV and HTLV-1 replication during productive and the latency phase of infection. He uses insights into the molecular interplay of viral and host factors during viral infection and the innate and adaptive immune responses to viral infection to develop new latency-breaking aminothiazole drugs, neutralising antibody inducing vaccines and other biomedical interventions for HIV and HTLV. Purcell pioneered bovine HIV Env vaccination to generate neutralising antibody and its potential use as a passive antibody prevention.

He is Past President and executive of the Australasian Virology Society, executive of the Australian HIV and Hepatitis Virology Centre (ACH2), Australian Co-Director for the Global Virus Network (GVN), Austral-Melanesian representative on the International Retrovirology Association (IRVA) and Chair of their International HTLV Conference in Melbourne in 2021.

Nina Russell joined the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2005 and serves as Deputy Director leading the TB and HIV Vaccine programs. Dr. Russell and team are responsible for the ongoing management of the Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery (CAVD), a large network of HIV vaccine discovery and development projects. She is a co-leader of the Pox-Protein Public Private Partnership (P5), and a member of the Oversight Group for the P5 HVTN 702 Ph2b trial that aims to improve upon the vaccine efficacy seen in RV144 and establish biomarkers that correlate with protection.  She is also a member of the Oversight Group for the HVTN 705 Ph2b efficacy trial that is evaluating the Janssen adenovirus vector prime with an Env protein boost to test the hypothesis that functional non-neutralizing antibody responses could provide protection against HIV. In addition to a large portfolio of HIV vaccine discovery and early phase translational grants, she has supported the development of a program to advance long-acting broadly neutralizing monoclonal and bi-specific antibodies for HIV prevention since 2012. She currently serves on the NIH AIDS Vaccine Research Subcommittee, the NIH Vaccine Research Center Scientific Advisory Working Group, and the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise External Advisory Group.

Prior to joining the foundation, Nina spent over six years in academic research at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington. Her research focused on various aspects of HIV vaccine clinical trials as part of the NIH-funded HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN). She initially worked on cellular immunology in the laboratory, focusing on the development and validation of immunological assays for human vaccine trials. She later moved out of the lab to manage the HVTN’s pipeline of Phase I and II HIV vaccine clinical trials, working closely with academic, biotech and industry partners to advance novel vaccine candidates into clinical testing. Nina completed a residency in Internal Medicine at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center and a clinical and research fellowship in Infectious Diseases at the Montefiore Medical Center – Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She received her M.D. from the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

Rogier Sanders (1975) studied Medical Biology at the University of Amsterdam and the Rockefeller University in New York. In 2004 he obtained his PhD (cum laude) from the University from Amsterdam.

Rogier currently is a Professor of Virology, specializing in Experimental Vaccinology at the Academic Medical Center of the University of Amsterdam and holds an affiliate faculty position at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City where he spends part of his time. His research focuses on HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein vaccines, in particular those based on native-like (SOSIP) trimers, which he co-invented.

He has received several prestigious grants such as the Veni, Vidi and Vici grants from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and a Starting Investigator grant from the European Research Council (ERC). He participates in various HIV research consortia funded by the EU, NIH/NIAID and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Rogier has (co-)authored more than 150 articles in scientific journals, including journals such as Nature, Science and Cell. His H-index is 52. In 2011, he received the Dutch Prize for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Gabriella Scarlatti, MD, Paediatrician and PhD in Virology, heads the Viral Evolution and Transmission Unit, at the San Raffaele Scientific Institute. She was Science Director of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, in New York, and Director of the Division of B cell and mucosal immunity of the Vaccine Research Institute, in Paris.

Since 1994, she works as a scientist and her laboratory is interested on the virologic and immunologic mechanisms of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and paediatric and adult infections to identify molecular signatures relevant for prevention of infection and containment of disease. She coordinated and still coordinates vaccine projects and humoral immunity platforms of international consortia, which are aimed at developing new immunogens to induce broadly neutralizing antibodies. She has served on numerous international scientific and working committees. She enjoyed supervising and working with graduate students and PhD students, and acted as opponent or examiner for PhD thesis defenses worldwide.

Barbara Shacklett, PhD, is Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of California, Davis. Her laboratory is recognized for developing and applying innovative approaches to study mucosal immunity to HIV. Over the past 15 years, her work has helped elucidate the relationship between mucosal T-cell responses and immune control of HIV infection, both in human cohorts and in the nonhuman primate model (SIVmac). This work has included studies of HIV “Elite” Controllers, the role of mucosal regulatory T-cells (Treg), mucosal immune reconstitution in individuals on combination antiretroviral therapy (cART), and mucosa-associated invariant T-cells (MAIT cells). Her group also studies the female reproductive tract, including hormonal regulation of innate and adaptive immune responses and the impact of menstrual cycle phases on host defense.

She has coauthored over 80 peer-reviewed publications, served on grant review panels in the US, France and Canada, and is currently an Advisor to the California HIV/AIDS Research Program (CHRP) and an Associate Editor of Mucosal Immunology.

Professor Robin Shattock is the Head of Mucosal Infection and Immunity within the Department of Medicine at Imperial College London. Professor Shattock’s research focuses on the mechanisms of mucosal infection and the development of novel preventative strategies appropriate to a developing world setting. This has led to the establishment of international collaborations aimed at preclinical identification, development and selection of HIV microbicide and vaccine candidates prior to formal clinical efficacy trials.

Professor Shattock oversees a portfolio of research that is supported by 26 members of staff including researchers, PhD students, clinical trial managers and project managers. Professor Shattock has published over 200 peer reviewed articles in this area and secured funding from the European Commission, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust, MRC and the NIH.

Dr Roger Tatoud is Deputy Director (Vaccines), HIV Programmes and Advocacy at the International AIDS Society. Roger has over 20 years of experience in the management of research and public health initiatives during which he has worked with global health research organisations to translate strategic plans into tactical realities and improve organisational operations towards excellence. Roger has a comprehensive background in science, research, operations, finance, legal and management of not-for-profit programmes. He has supported academic and not-for-profit organisations and worked with the pharmaceutical industry in diverse diseases areas, with a focus on infectious diseases and especially HIV since 2008.

Previously, Roger was responsible for the operations and management of a GCLP-accredited clinical immunology laboratory in London with connections to East African partners. He also led a key research service office dedicated to the development and management of clinical and translational research from bench to clinic (GxP), overseeing and contributing to the management of national and international multicentre clinical research programmes.

Ntando Yola is a South African-based community engagement practitioner and an advocate for HIV prevention and research. He is based at the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation where he does most of his work. He has a deep interest in human rights and ethics of seeing communities being active and central contributors in research efforts to find better and new HIV and TB prevention / treatment biomedical interventions. When science yields outcomes, policies and strategies that are geared towards public health impact are developed, they should be informed by communities’ lived experiences and should respond to their varied contexts. That is the reason he has worked with communities in Cape Town, South Africa and beyond as part of a collective movement through networks that strengthen platforms for communities’ voices and involvement mechanism in relevant processes of engagement and advocacy.

In 2013 he was an AVAC Fellow, exploring opportunities to develop sustainable and effective mechanisms of involving broad stakeholders in clinical trials across South Africa (SA), which operationalized the Good Participatory Practice (GPP) guidelines. His fellowship resulted in a National Stakeholder Engagement Framework in Biomedical HIV prevention trials, bringing multiple civil society stakeholders together as a platform of engagement.

He serves on and works with a number of local, regional and global entities which promote, facilitate and advocate for involvement of community or civil society groups in the advancement of biomedical HIV prevention research and related diseases’ agenda. Some of these include being a South African representative in the Vaccine Advocacy Resource Group (VARG), a member of the South African Health Technologies Advocacy Coalition (SAHTAC) and a steering member of a regional advocacy network – Africa Free of New HIV Infections (AfnHi). He is also a co-founder of an advocacy group – Advocacy for Prevention of HIV in Africa (APHA), serves as a Community Working Group co-chair of the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) and a chair of the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC) Men’s Sector.