More about South Africa 2008

2002 Database Cover

The HIV Databases provide information for HIV/AIDS researchers all over the world on HIV genetic diversity, human immunology, antiretroviral drugs, and related topics.

Brian Foley, PhD
April 17, 2008

HIV-1 is a diverse group of viruses. The HIV-1 M group causes more than 95% of the global AIDS pandemic, and within the M group, the subtype C viruses are the ones responsible for the majority of infections in southern Africa. There are vaccine innitiatives aimed specifically at HIV-1 M group subtype C, as well as others aimed at other subtypes. South Africa is being particularly devastated by the HIV-1 subtype C epidemic, with close to 40% of women of childbrearing age being infected in many communities. South Africa is the most developed, economically and sceintfically, of all African nations. South Africa has some of the finest HIV research in the world, at places such as the University of Cape Town.

The 14th International BioInformatics Workshop on Virus Evolution and Molecular Epidemiology will be held in Cape Town this year, from September 1-5, 2008. This will be an unprecedented opportunity for me to share my expertise in the field of HIV genetic research with students and professors from southern Africa, many of whom could not afford to travel to the USA or Europe to get this type of training. It is much more efficient to bring the experts leading the training to South Africa, than to have all the students fly to another location.

In order to keep the cost of the workshop at a minimum to the students, the workshop organizers are asking each of us instructors to raise our own funds to cover our travel and other expenses for this workshop. Most agencies, such as the NIH/NIAID which funds the HIV Databases I work for, do not provide small travel grants like this. I am thus in the position of brainstorming for other ideas. I am hoping that perhaps ONE.org or RED.com will agree to work with me on this. The cost of my travel should be roughly $3,400 including roughly $2,500 for airfare and $900 for food, lodging, and local travel. I plan to stay in Cape town for 2 or 3 days beyond the bioinformatics workshop, to work with the AIDS research group at the University of Cape Town, in a more one-on-one setting.

The computer lab in Cape Town was first rate, with a good PC for each of the 20 students, plus an instructor's workstation with a projector to the wall at the front of the lab. Each PC had software for DNA sequence analysis, plus a web link and browser, so they could access the HIV Databases and tools such as Treemaker.