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AIDS RESEARCHAdvanced AIDS Research Facility to Open in South Africa in Collaboration with HMSIn the area of South Africa where Bruce Walker works, more than 50 percent of pregnant women are estimated to be infected with HIV. Most people would find it hard to see the bright side of such a dark statistic, but he has found one. "There is so much need there that you can actually have a very big impact," said Walker, director of the HMS Division of AIDS and HMS professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.
In addition to setting up a new research facility, Bruce Walker (above) is working with colleagues at Durban's McCord Hospital to test new HIV therapies and expand existing treatment programs. His colleagues (l to r in slide), are Nonhlanhla Mhlongo,a social worker; Professor Zulu, head of McCord Hospital's board of trustees; Helga Holst, McCord Hospital superintendent; and Krista Dong, a fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital who is coordinating trials of HIV treatment. (Photo by Liza Green, HMS Media Services) If need is any measure, then Walker and his colleagues stand poised to make a huge difference. Several years ago, they decided to set up a state-of-the-art research facility in the most AIDS-ravaged city in South Africa, Durban. "We said, let's build the best research facility for HIV and let's put it right in the middle of the epidemic," he said. On April 26, he and colleagues traveled to Durban to begin the move into the new 35,000-square-foot building, which is a joint project of the Division of AIDS and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Most of the labs should be up and running by early summer. The facility, located on the campus of the Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine at the University of Natal, formally opens on July 29 with a dedication ceremony. The building will house the most sophisticated research equipment, but the heart of the new institute will be its predominantly African staff. "Our aim was not to do parachute research, but to train researchers on site. We wanted to form an anchor to keep and repatriate dedicated African researchers who right now do not have a state-of-the-art facility to go to," Walker said. It is already an opportunity that researchers are finding hard to resist. "I spoke recently with a researcher who had been recruited to be chief of medicine at a hospital in New Zealand. He decided not to leave. He said, 'It is too exciting here.'" Walker is hoping that some of that excitement and sense of purpose will rub off on HMS students. He and colleagues at the Division of AIDS are creating a program that would allow HMS students to spend a summer at the new institute. "This is an opportunity for medical students to come to the heart of the devastation," said Walker, at a talk to HMS students on April 22. "It is a place where a little effort goes an incredibly long way." He told the story of an HMS student who went to St. Mary's Hospital in Durban to work with HIV-infected children. She planned to go for six weeks, but has stayed for two years. "The need was so great," he said. In addition to supporting research into the origins and treatment of AIDS, the new building will provide an infrastructure for clinical treatment trials. Other sites for the trials are being planned in collaboration with medical schools in Capetown and Johannesburg. --Misia Landau |
