Hiv Researcher To Speak At Institute For Advanced Study

George M. Shaw, M.D, Ph.D., pioneering HIV researcher, will speak on "Pathogenesis and Origin of HIV-1" on March 21 at 4:30 p.m. in Wolfensohn Hall on the campus of the Institute for Advanced Study. The event is part of the Institute's Public Lecture Series in Biology. A reception in the Common Room of Fuld Hall will follow the lecture.

Director of the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, and a Howard Hughes Principal Investigator, Shaw's clinical interests are in medical oncology and hematology, idiopathic (immune) thrombocytopenia, and human retroviral infections and diseases. He was first to outline the enormous genetic variability of HIV, as well as quantifying the effect of antiviral therapy. Most recently, Shaw has provided evidence that HIV-1 entered the human population from chimpanzees.

A graduate of Dartmouth College, Shaw earned his M.D. and Ph.D. at Ohio State University, Columbus. After internship and residency at the University of Michigan, he did postdoctoral study at the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, in molecular biology and retrovirology. He has been on the faculty of the University of Alabama, Birmingham, since 1985, becoming Howard Hughes Investigator in 1997 and director of Hematology and Oncology in 1999. He serves on the editorial boards of AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses, the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syundromes, and the Journal of Virology.

Two further biology lectures are scheduled, also sponsored by the Institute's Program in Theoretical Biology: Walter Gilbert of Harvard University on April 18, and Sir Robert May of Oxford University on May 2.