Louis Picker, M.D., and his team have been awarded a $25 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that will spur their work on a vaccine candidate against HIV.  This work is based on previous findings that this candidate, which uses cytomegalovirus as a vector, can boost effector memory T cells to successfully target simian immunodeficiency virus. This new award will test the safety of a prototype human version of the vaccine in a phase I clinical trial in humans, as well as optimize the vaccine for phase II trials. Read the OHSU media release here, and here’s the Oregonian story.