Dr. Bruce D Walker

The Walker laboratory focuses on mechanisms of immune control in HIV infection, focusing in particular on persons who control HIV infection spontaneously without the need for medication. Through an international collaboration now funded by the Gates Foundation, more than 1500 persons who control HIV infection to less than 2000 RNA Copies/ml without the need for antiviral medications have been recruited, and immunologic, virologic and host genetic mechanisms accounting for this remarkable phenotype are being investigated. Our results, published in Science, indicate that the major genetic determinants of HIV control affect the nature of the peptide-HLA binding. We are currently focusing our research efforts on this interaction and how it impacts the inductive and effector phases of the CD8 T cell response.

Other projects currently underway are building on a observation that the antiviral efficacy of CTL varies dramatically among different epitopes and different restricting HLA alleles, in an attempt to define the major antiviral effector functions and apply these to vaccine development. At the same time, efforts are underway to define the subset of CD8 T cell responses that exert the strongest antiviral effect, and to define those responses that are simply passengers and fail to contribute to immune control.

In addition to these efforts in Boston, a major effort is underway at our laboratory at the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, where a major population based effort is underway to define evolution of clade C virus infection under immune selection pressure, and to define predictable pathways to immune escape. We have established a mechanism for recruitment of persons with acute HIV infection by screening persons who test antibody negative at VCT (now HCT) sites in KZN. We anticipate an expanding collaboration with persons at the Ithembalebantu Clinic in Umlazi to accelerate these studies, which will include examination of tissue biopsies.