Since that time, he has made numerous seminal contributions using the SIV/macaque model to better understand the mechanisms by which HIV-1 and SIV cause disease and for vaccine development efforts. In 1990, Dr. Desrosiers described the first-ever infectious, pathogenic molecular clone of this group of viruses and to this day it remains the clone of choice for controlled experiments in monkeys. Its 10,279 base-pair sequence can be manipulated in any way such that the effects on viral tropism, replicative capacity, immune avoidance, and disease propensity can be examined. Dr. Desrosiers has used this system to better understand the relative importance and functional contribution of the so-called nonessential genes and to better understand the evolution of antigenic escape variants. He has shown that live attenuated SIV deletion mutants can serve effectively as vaccines. To this day, live attenuated SIV remains the gold standard for vaccine protection against SIV in monkeys to which all other vaccine approaches are compared. This work provides hope that a vaccine against HIV will be possible. While he has previously tried a number of novel vaccine concepts using the SIV/macaque model, he is currently focused on two approaches: use of AAV vector to deliver antibodies with potent, broad neutralizing activity and the use of recombinant persistent herpesviruses as vaccine vectors. Dr. Desrosiers is the discoverer of the KSHV-related gamma-2 herpesvirus of rhesus monkeys called rhesus monkey rhadinovirus that is being used for the latter efforts. He has been a strong advocate for basic and discovery research in the world’s AIDS vaccine efforts.
Ronald Desrosiers, Ph.D.
Research Professor
Vice Chair of Basic Research
Director of Research Faculty Development
Jose Martinez-Navio, Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor
James Termini, Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor