All T-Cells Are Not Created Equal: Day 1, Ontario HIV Treatment Network Conference

Today I was at the first day of the Ontario HIV Treatment Network’s 2008 Research Conference.  The organization is a big funder of AIDS research in Ontario and it was great to check out what people are doing to learn about the pandemic in my ‘hood.

Sometimes I’m amazed at how broad the approach is to the topic of HIV/AIDS.  I don’t have a lot to compare it to, but when oncologists get together, do they talk about arts-based models in cancer research while simultaneously talking about the cellular processes taking place inside healthy bodies and cancer patients?  One of the phrases that keeps getting repeated at this conference is “The AIDS Community”.  It’s not a misnomer…there is certainly an AIDS community, an amalgamation of researchers, activists, policy makers, and most importantly, people living with the virus.  But, is it a good or bad thing that there is such a thing?  What does it say about the disease in question?

Anyway, I attended a couple of great sessions.  Right after the excellent (but a little bit beyond me) keynote address by Kelly MacDonald, who spoke on the need to challenge assumptions within biomedical research to reach our goals of vaccines and cures, was an equally excellent (and more accessable) movie about health/wealth gradients.  I would highly recommend checking it out.