A scientist explains what's going on in AIDS cure research.

Dr. Sharon Lewin is an MD PhD and a former post-doctoral student in David Ho's laboratory (if you don't know David Ho, google him). She was chosen to deliver a plenary speech on the cure the night the Vienna International AIDS Conference opened. It is remarkable that this ignored and marginalized subject, the cure for AIDS, actually managed to get a place on the plenary. There are barely any sessions about it during the conference itself. Sharon is from Australia, where she runs a research lab. There is not much money for AIDS cure research in Australia.  The US is spending only 3% of its AIDS research budget on a cure for AIDS, but even that money is largely unavailable to foreign researchers. This needs to change.

Sharon explains the current state of AIDS eradication research in the video attached to this blog post. It's about 1 hour, 55 minutes into the video. She speaks for about 25 minutes. It gets pretty sciencey, but stick with it because you'll learn information about cure research.

Here's the link to the video: http://globalhealth.kff.org/AIDS2010/July-18/Opening-Session-LIVE-WEBCAST.aspx