Jared Baeten, MD, PhD, current Vice Chair of the Department of Global Health, has accepted the position of Director of the University of Washington/Fred Hutch Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) starting January 1, 2017. After 30 years as CFAR Director, King Holmes will transition to a Co-Director role and will remain an active member of the CFAR Leadership Team.

By Bruce Jancin

DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA – Oral antiretroviral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) against HIV also reduces the risk of acquiring herpes simplex virus type 2, according to research presented at the 21st International AIDS Conference.

“Given the limited interventions for primary prevention of HSV-2, efficacy against HSV-2 provides additional benefit to oral PrEP,” observed Connie Celum, MD, professor of global health and medicine at the University of Washington, Seattle.

By Heather Boerner

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — From where Linda-Gail Bekker sits as director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre in Cape Town, science has been losing ground against HIV for years, especially when it comes to young women. After all, in some parts of the country, girls who are 15 today have an 80 percent chance of acquiring HIV in their lifetimes.

“We’re really in the trenches here,” she said. “We have to bring all the technology, tools—you know, innovations—we can find to start turning that war around.”

New data analyses finds that a monthly vaginal ring containing an antiretroviral drug called dapivirine can cut women’s HIV risk by more than half and, in some, by 75 percent or more.

One of the researchers, Jared Baeten, a University of Washington professor of epidemiology, medicine and global health, presented the results Tuesday at the AIDS 2016 conference in Durban, South Africa.