A paper in Nature reports the details of a 60-year-old male individual from Germany who achieved sustained HIV remission after a stem cell transplant, the seventh-known case reported to date. go.nature.com/4rNjedx #medsky 🧪

11/ HIV is an extraordinarily challenging pathogen. Demonstrating that the immune system *can* be manipulated to improve control of HIV and identifying a correlate of that control in vivo in people is both important for the field and also gives us something concrete to build on.

7/ @demisandel.bsky.social (1st PhD student in my lab!) made the key observation: early in rebound, before viral loads diverged, participants who went on to control HIV to low levels had a larger expansion of activated, cycling CD8+ T cells in the blood compared to those who did not control rebound.

Essential reading if you care about the health of scientific inquiry in the US www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Thoughtful coverage of our study from various outlets. 🧵 1/ The SF Chonicle: www.sfchronicle.com/health/artic...

1/ We are making progress towards finding a cure for HIV. In a trial @UCSF led by Steve Deeks and @michaelpelusomd.bsky.social, 7/10 participants who received a combination of immunotherapies achieved partial control of HIV after stopping antiretroviral therapy (ART).🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

“The National AIDS Memorial, through a partnership with the AIDS Quilt Touch team, presents all 50,000 panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt in an interactive experience so people around the world can experience the beauty of the Quilt and witness the love and stories stitched into each panel.”

For the first time in decades, the federal government refuses to acknowledge World AIDS Day. But we are prepared for this fight, and we won't let them harm our community. We have built systems of care, fought for our rights, and protected each other through every wave of hate. We are ready.

Correlates of HIV-1 control after combination immunotherapy @rrutishauser.bsky.social @ucsfhividgm.bsky.social @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

T cells with stem-cell-like properties could work with antibody therapies to control HIV after a person stops taking antiviral pills @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/d41... @drjli.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41... @ragoninstitute.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This #WorldAIDSDay, help us call on Congress to fully fund federal HIV programs: idsociety.quorum.us/campaign/148...

Fear and uncertainty hang over much of the HIV community this #WorldAIDSDay as we reflect on lives lost, progress made and current efforts to unravel our country’s HIV response. Action must follow our reflection this year. Our statement: https://bit.ly/4ot4mOi

SCOOP: The Trump administration has instructed employees and grantees not to use U.S. funds to commemorate World AIDS Day — because the observance was started by the World Health Organization. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/h...

Pictures of David Kirby appeared in "Life" magazine this month in 1990. Kirby was dying of complications of AIDS. The photographs were taken at Pater Noster House, a hospice in Columbus, Ohio. #MedSky + #IDSky + #HistorySky. www.life.com/history/behi...

The 2025 UNAIDS report is out and it is a stark reminder that the HIV epidemic is not over. After a decade of progress, the global HIV response was shaken this year by abrupt, deep cuts in international funding. Clinics closed. Community programmes collapsed. www.unaids.org/en/resources...

3/ World AIDS Day is Dec 1 -- this is THE day to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS, support those living with it, remember those lost, and promote prevention and education worldwide. worldaidsday.org

1/ ⚠️ Breaking: At CDC, we've been told the US Government will not officially commemorate World AIDS Day this year. No explanation given.

Among the many things Carl Dieffenbach was working on: the re-competition and renewal of #HIV clinical research networks: ACTG, HPTN, HVTN, IMPAACT.

A lot of the transformational advances in HIV science — Truvada PrEP, Treatment as prevention (HPTN 052), U=U, lenacapavir PrEP etc. happened under Carl's watch. A kind and generous person to boot. Huge loss.

Hearing news that Carl Dieffenbach, the Director of the Division of AIDS at #NIH (NIAID), has been removed from his position because he was "not aligned with HHS/OMB." Russell Vought continues to remove great scientists as part of the Project 2025 mission to politicize and destroy NIH. 🧪 1/

@natrevimmunol.nature.com Guidelines for T cell nomenclature www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🔬 "From CAR T cell-targeting of the #HIV reservoir to therapies for cancer and autoimmune diseases, T cells hold the potential to improve medicine." via @amfarofficial.bsky.social

What usually gets lost in the focus on what an evil racist James Watson was is just how colossal of a dumbass he was and just how far he set the field back. But @sramach.bsky.social and @cbo.bsky.social kept their eye on the ball.

Azalea grew out of collaborative research conducted at the Innovative Genomics Institute in Jennifer Doudna’s lab and in Justin Eyquem’s lab as part of the Gladstone-UCSF Institute of Genomic Immunology. @j-eyquem.bsky.social @innovativegenomics.bsky.social

Adding more signs of how NIH science is/was broken: my lab team could not show up for 3 more accepted talks at scientific conferences, totaling 9 for the year now. If you interview current NIH trainees for grad or med schools please understand that we are giving them the best experience we can.

In our latest study in @cp-immunity.bsky.social, we followed dynamics of vaccine-specific Tfh cells for 60+ weeks after immunization. authors.elsevier.com/a/1m3mV3qNrU... We captured >500,000 CD4 T cells including >36,000 vaccine-specific Tfh by scRNAseq, giving an unprecedented longitudinal detail.

This is…outstanding. If I may, I urge us to read it carefully, and appreciate the details, the shape, the picture it paints.

Exciting collaboration combining multiplex epigenetic reprogramming and site-specific payload integration!

@joann-trejo.bsky.social, @marymunson4.bsky.social and I have a commentary in @natcellbio.nature.com on recent attacks on DEI in biomedical research: "If scientific research, especially biomedical research, is meant to serve everyone, then it requires that everyone has an opportunity to participate"

We’re thrilled to announce a new round of grants to HIV researchers worth a total of $2.4M: www.amfar.org/press-releas...

Reading Rainbow emphasis is encouraging kids to read. The focus is not on teaching them to read. The mission is reading should be fun! We are all readers, worthy of literacy. LeVar Burton said “but you don’t have to take my word for it” because he wanted us to look to the books. That’s the beauty 💚

There are unprecedented challenges for science, calling for bold action and collective effort. Training the next generation of scientific leaders has never been more important. Join us as we grow National PROPEL to answer this call. Learn more: propelscholars.org @propelscholars.bsky.social 🧪🧬🖥️🧵

Dear #microbiology and #immunology community- I took a break from social media after I deleted my Twitter account, but am back here. Please help me rebuild my community by following me and amplifying this message- I will follow you back. Thank you and I look forward to our many interactions!

Happy to announce the publication using advanced models to understand how T cells mediate efficient immunoediting in early sarcomas. This was a collaboration between Julie Cheung and Brian Hunt in the lab Thanks to Cancer Cell for publishing our work. www.cell.com/cancer-cell/...

Great job @sarasuliman.bsky.social on discussing the evolution of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in human populations over time #TBSky #IDSky #MedSky 🧪 #genetics www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I often emphasize that there are rarely "silver bullets" that magically solve problems but vaccines are one of the closest things we have and it's mind-boggling and enraging to watch this "debate" unfold during my lifetime

Here's the upshot on hepatitis B vaccination at birth: - it's extremely safe - the earlier it's given, the better it protects against transmission from mother-to-child - screening fails to capture many cases and is not done at all in many cases - perinatal HBV infection is catastrophic

Come join us! We start at 11AM on Tuesday September 16th and end at 11AM on Wednesday September 17th. We have researchers from around the world talking about how their work has revolutionized health and saved millions of lives from HIV/AIDS. end/

While many institutions are capitulating to Trump, my favorite scientific societies are fighting back. Aug 1 @ascbiology.bsky.social, @asm.org, @asbmb.bsky.social, & @faseborg.bsky.social jointly filed an expanded amicus brief with the Supreme Court in American Public Health Association v. NIH 1/n

The NIH budget will INCREASE by $400 million — not slashed by 40%, as Trump proposed — according to a proposal by Senate appropriators, says Sen Murray. "Some have asked if there will even be an NIH by [2029]. The commmittee's resounding message is yes—Congress has your back", she says.

If you can swing the dues, I recommend joining APHA and then fill out the form. This is the path I took for the first round of this suit

“The court has asked for a final list of delayed or withdrawn applications to be submitted as early as August 4th, and we are hoping to provide as complete a list of impacted grant applications as possible. 2/n

Court accepting updated list of plaintiffs/grantees impacted! MUST BE SUBMITTED BY AUGUST 1st 5pm EST! Please disseminate!!! Message from ACLU team below: 1/n

Years-long HIV-1 immunity can be generated in rhesus macaques from a one-time AAV vector (encoding HIV specific broadly neutralizing antibodies) administration at birth @nature.com @mamartins83.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our study also showed that, compared to adult and juvenile macaques, neonates were more likely to benefit from AAV-vectored delivery of HIV-1 bNAbs because of their tolerance-prone immune systems.

I’m happy to share the latest paper from my lab published in Nature today. nature.com/articles/s41... We show in rhesus macaques that a single dose of AAV/bNAb vectors at birth was safe and resulted in bNAb levels in plasma that lasted for up to 4 years without redosing.

Congratulations, Mauricio!!!

By entirely funding more awards up front, the NIH is on track to fund just 1 in 25 applications Such a payline “would chase a lot of people out of science” former NCI director Ned Sharpless told us 🧪🔬 www.statnews.com/2025/07/29/n...

New, from an anonymous NIH insider: Trump is being pushed to spend more NIH money. The White House is ordering NIH to do multi-year budgets for awards. This budget trick means fewer awards, fewer labs funded, and lower paylines for researchers. 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/alert-the-...

How much of the TCR repertoire can we make sense of? Can your TCR and GEX data be put in the context of other conditions/tissues? How many varieties of T cells are in the repertoire zoo? All these questions (& more) addressed in our latest preprint: MetaCoNGA www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... . a 🧵