Dr. Larry Arthur is a man on a mission.

If he has his way, in the future Human Immunodeficiency Virus - HIV- will be as harmless as the measles.

Just don't expect the cure to arrive in the near future.

"When we first started off with our research, we didn't realize the virus could change as much as it does," said Arthur, Associate Director of the AIDS Vaccine Program at the National Cancer Institute at Frederick. "The prediction at that time, even by the Department of Health and Human Services, was that we'd have a vaccine in two years. That was back in 1984. We're not two years away from a vaccine right now, I can tell you.

"But there are a lot of things that we're doing that make me optimistic that we'll understand more about how the body's immune system works; we'll know how to stimulate those immune systems so they can fight off the virus. We will eventually have a vaccine."

Thirty-three million people in the world have AIDS. Two million people die of AIDS-related causes each year. Twenty-five million people worldwide have died of AIDS-related causes since 1981.

The United States alone spends over $1.6 billion each year on researching cures and treatments to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS, part of a worldwide war on a virus that has claimed the lives of, among others, actors Rock Hudson and Anthony Perkins, musicians Freddie Mercury, Eazy-E, and Tom Fogerty, athlete Arthur Ashe, and author Isaac Asimov.

Arthur, who received his PhD in Microbiology from LSU in 1970, worked with HIV as soon as the virus was discovered in 1984, and assisted in producing the test to ensure that blood used in transfusions was free of the HIV virus. At the time, an estimated 5,000 people each year were contracting HIV from blood transfusions-including Hudson, Fogerty, Ashe, and Asimov.

"By coming up with these assays for testing the blood used for transfusion we have dropped the number of people accidentally infected with HIV to the low digits," Arthur said.

Now his sights are set on a loftier goal, one in which Mother Nature has stacked the odds against him-finding a vaccine.

"Vaccines are directed against the virus coat, so a vaccine that works against the virus, and when it changes its coat, it escapes the immune response so it can infect the individual that's been vaccinated," said Arthur. "That's the main problem we have with HIV; it's developed a great capability to change its outer coat to evade all of the vaccines that we currently have.

"If you think of the influenza virus, we have to do a new vaccine each year because it varies by about 4% during the year. HIV in one individual varies by more than 4%, so the coat of the virus changes so much that the possibility of developing a vaccine gets more and more difficult."

Difficult, but not impossible. Arthur, and his team at the NCI, are working on a strategy for attacking the virus that involves focusing on understanding the immune system’s response to vaccinations.

"I do think that there are researchers who are beginning to understand more about the immune system, and we have greater opportunities every day for coming up with the idea of how to develop a vaccine that might be effective," Arthur said.

When that day arrives, Arthur may finally be able to slow down and spend more time enjoying another passion of his-LSU athletics. Working alongside graduates of Alabama, Virginia Tech, Ohio State, and Southern California can make life interesting when alma maters meet on the field, and Arthur is no shrinking violet when it comes to displaying his Tiger fandom.

"Having been born and raised in Louisiana I've always had a lot of affection for LSU," said Arthur. "I thought it was great that I had the opportunity to come here and get my PhD and enjoy all the academic life at that time, particularly the sports. I think LSU alumni are fanatics about the sports, and that's great.

"I know my wife and I watch every single LSU football game and most of the baseball games that we can get on TV. We have our basement decorated with LSU gear, and there’s no question among any of our friends or associates where our loyalties lie."

 

Related links:

National Cancer Institute:
www.cancer.gov

AIDS and Cancer Virus Program:
http://ccr.cancer.gov/Labs/Lab.asp?LabID=70

SAIC-Frederick:
http://www.saic-frederick.com

LSU Department of Biological Sciences:
http://www.biology.lsu.edu