INNOVATORS Gold Award - New Orleans City Business

ON THE BRINK
HIV Research
Tulane University National
Primate Research Center
Key innovation: development of a gel to prevent
transmission of HIV in women
Biggest client: patients in developing countries
Where they’re based: Covington
Top executive: Andrew Lackner, director
Year introduced: in development
PHOTO BY SHANNON DIECIDUE
THE STATISTICS ARE staggering: Since the discovery
of AIDS in 1981, 25 million people have died of the disease
worldwide, according to Avert.org.
Since that time, doctors and researchers have worked
to control and someday eradicate what has become one of
the world’s greatest epidemics.
Dr. Ronald Veazey, an AIDS researcher since 1994, is
testing a potential breakthrough in the prevention of HIV
designed specifically for women at the Tulane University
National Primate Research Center in Covington.
Macaque monkeys are being used to test a microbicide gel
called a fusion inhibitor that could be applied topically to
the vagina.
Veazey said a fusion inhibitor is a drug that prevents
the virus from attaching to or entering human cells.
“HIV attaches to and enters cells through a two-step
process that involves the binding of very specific molecules
on the virus with molecules on the host cell, kind of
like a ‘lock and key’ mechanism,” Veazey said. “This is
why HIV only infects primates and not mice, rabbits or
other animals.”
He said that is why the macaques are necessary to
study the interactions of the virus with the vagina and
other tissues.
“Only the molecules on the cells of primates have the
correct molecular structure allowing HIV to attach to
them,” Veazey said.
Public health officials have long called for an HIV prevention
method that would be completely under a
woman’s control.
“We are targeting patients in developing countries,
where the HIV epidemic is spreading the fastest,” Veazey
said. “There are areas where condom use is either discouraged
or not an option due to male-dominated societies,
religious beliefs or other reasons.”
But the gel won’t be on the market for at least five years,
maybe longer, Veazey said.
“We simply performed a preclinical study showing
that it protects monkeys from HIV transmission. Now it
has to get in line with a number of other compounds for
approval to perform clinical safety trials in humans, or
Phase 1 and 2 trials, and then after it is proven safe, there
will be large-scale Phase 3 trials, which usually take years
to complete.”•
— Lisa Bacques
Dr. Ronald Veazey, an AIDS researcher with Tulane University’s National Primate Research Center in Covington, is working on a gel that
could prevent the virus from attaching to or attacking human cells.
54A 2008 Innovator of the Year