Hot Topics in HIV – Vaccines, immune recovery and eradication 2025

Dr. Clotet received his MD (1976) and his PhD (1981), with a thesis on autoimmune diseases, from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). That same year, his internship as an Internal Medicine specialist at the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona coincided with the first AIDS case reported in Spain. This case was the catalyst for a career dedicated to this serious disease, first as head of the HIV Unit of the Germans Trias i Pujol University Hospital in Badalona (1987-2015) and then as founder and president of the Fight against AIDS Foundation (1992), which is now named as Fight Infections Foundation.

Dr. Clotet soon saw the need to go a step beyond patient care to conduct research aimed at eradicating AIDS. In 1995, with the support of “la Caixa” and the Department of Health of the Generalitat of Catalonia, he founded the IrsiCaixa AIDS Research Institute, which he still heads.  In addition, Dr. Clotet is also the clinical director of Infectious Diseases at the Metropolitana Nord area of the Catalan Institute of Health, scientific advisor to two IrsiCaixa spin-offs: Aelix Therapeutics SL and AlbaJuna Therapeutics SL and director of the Chair of AIDS and Related Diseases at the Universitat de Vic (UVic).

He has published more than 1000 papers in high impact international journals and his contributions to research have been recognized with the Josep Trueta medal to Sanitary Merit and the ‘Premi Nacional de Recerca’, among other awards.

ICREA Research Professor and Principal Investigator at Retrovirology and Clinical Studies research group, Irsicaixa AIDS Research Institute, Barcelona, Spain.

Dr. Katharine Bar is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, an adult HIV provider, and a translational physician-scientist studying novel approaches to HIV prevention and cure. Her molecular virology laboratory studies the basic mechanisms of virus transmission, pathogenesis and persistence of HIV-1 and other viruses within novel nonhuman primate (NHP) models and curated clinical cohorts. Her early work focused on delineating HIV transmission to inform prevention strategies. Her current research aims to elucidate the mechanisms of HIV persistence to inform therapy and cure strategies, by (i) characterizing the viral dynamics and host immune responses during virus suppression and treatment interruption, (ii) developing NHP models that faithfully recapitulate HIV-1 latency and rebound, and (iii) developing antibody-based interventions. At Penn, she leads the Center for AIDS Research’s Virus and Reservoirs Advanced Technology Core, which supports multiple investigators’ basic and translational HIV research. Through her leadership positions on clinical trials protocols and within the ACTG and HVTN, she is committed to driving tangible advances of basic science via experimental medicine and more advanced human clinical trials.

Mayte Coiras holds a PhD in Pharmacy and is a Senior Researcher at the National Center of Microbiology (Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain) where she is the Head of the Immunopathology and Viral Reservoir Unit. Her main research focus is the study of the parameters influencing the stability of the HIV-1 reservoir, as well as the design of new therapeutic strategies aimed at achieving a functional cure. She has been the principal investigator in 18 research projects, has published over 70 peer-reviewed articles, and has presented more than 150 abstracts at national and international conferences.

Professor at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, where he leads the Laboratory for Translational Immunology of Viral Infections and co-leads the Personalized Infectious Medicine program at the Berlin Institute of Health. Previously, he served as an Assistant Professor at Rockefeller University in New York. As a physician-scientist, his work spans basic immunology of viral infections through the clinical development of antibody immunotherapies for infectious diseases, with a focus on HIV. His contributions have earned him significant recognition, including a 2021 Top 10 Clinical Research Achievement Award, the 2023 German AIDS Award from the German AIDS Society, and recognition as one of Clarivate’s Highly Cited Researchers for 2023 and 2024.

PhD in Molecular Biology, Biomedicine and Clinical Research at the Immunovirology Laboratory of the Institute of Biomedicine of Seville. During this period, she undertooks a predoctoral research stay at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, where she specialized in the characterization of the HIV reservoir in elite controllers. Her research has focused on studying the immunological and virological factors involved in the spontaneous control of HIV infection.

Txell Genescà is a Senior Researcher from the Infectious Diseases Department at the Vall d’Hebron Research Institut, in Barcelona, since 2017. She is a veterinarian by training, who after her PhD in organ preservation for trasplantation, spent 6 years at the University of California working on mucosal immunology and vaccine development using the macaque model for HIV. In her current position, she leads the “Mucosal Immunity against Infection” group, with projects based on tissue explant models focused on defining protective immune responses against pathogens, with a particular emphasis on T cells, in order to develop new therapies against infections.

Dimitra Peppa is an Associate Professor in HIV Immunology and Honorary HIV Consultant at the Institute of Immunity and Transplantation (IIT), UCL. She runs an immunology research lab studying immunity in human disease including chronic viral infections with HIV, HBV and emerging viral infections (SARS-CoV-2). Her lab has expertise in adaptive immunity and NK cell biology with a focus on translational research and the identification of new targets for ‘cure’ strategies and vaccine development. Other projects focus on dissecting the network of drivers of chronic inflammation associated with premature ageing and multi-morbidity in people living with HIV.

Eva Poveda is a health researcher at the Galician Health Service (SERGAS). She coordinates the consolidated Research Group on Virology and Pathogenesis at the Biomedical Research Institute Galicia Sur and currently serves as its Scientific Director. She is an expert with over 23 years of experience studying HIV/AIDS and other viral infections (e.g., viral hepatitis, SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19). She has published 194 articles in international scientific journals. She is also noted for her strong commitment and activism promoting the visibility of women and gender equity in science, as well as her work in scientific outreach.

Ezequiel Ruiz-Mateos PhD is Senior Scientist of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) at the Institute of Biomedicine of Seville (IBiS). His main research line is focused in the understanding of the cellular and molecular immune mechanisms that allows some extraordinary subjects, the so called “HIV controllers” to spontaneously control HIV replication in the absence of treatment, with the aim to translate these findings to immunotherapeutic strategies for the control and eradication of HIV infection. His research lines are also focused in analyzing mechanisms involved in the immunopathogenesis caused by HIV-infection for the search of immunomodulatory treatments for long-term HIV remission in people on antiretroviral therapy.

Dr. Sacha graduated cum laude from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2003 with a B.A. in German and B.S. in Biology. After receiving his Ph.D. in Medical Microbiology & Immunology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2007, he joined the Oregon Health & Science University with appointments in both the Oregon National Primate Research Center and the Vaccine & Gene Therapy Institute in 2011. In 2023 he became Chief of the Division of Pathobiology and Immunology. He maintains a translational-focused research program that has included research on endogenous retroviruses (ERVs), Hepatitis B virus (HBV), Yellow Fever Virus (YFV), SARS-CoV-2 (COVID19), Long COVID, Monkeypox (MPOX), Cytomegalovirus (CMV), Mycobacterium Tuberculosis (MTB), allogeneic stem cell transplantation (alloSCT), and re-emerging pathogens like Oropouche Virus (OROV).

Prof. Dr. Linos Vandekerckhove is a Belgian physician-scientist and clinical virologist based at Ghent University (UGent). He heads the HIV Cure Research Center (HCRC) in Ghent, where his work focuses on understanding and targeting the persistent HIV reservoir. His research integrates molecular virology, immunology, and translational medicine, with the goal of developing curative strategies for HIV infection. He has served as principal investigator in numerous clinical and translational HIV studies and is recognized internationally for his leadership in HIV cure research.