The date is set for the ARCS Foundation Oreegon's Scholar Awards Luncheon at the Portland Art Museum.  Don’t miss the Chapter’s signature event and the opportunity to celebrate our ARCS scholars and hear about the groundbreaking new development by OHSU scientists.

Dr. Louis Picker, associate director of the OHSU Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute, will be the keynote speaker of the Scholar Awards Luncheon on November 2, 2015.  Dr. Picker and his OHSU team have developed a vaccine that successfully cured monkeys infected with simian immunodeficiency virus, or SIV, the primate equivalent of HIV in humans.  

Picker and his team have received a $25 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to continue their research and bring the vaccine to humans, with a phase I trial beginning sometime in 2016.  With 35 million people worldwide living with AIDS and over 2 million new cases diagnosed last year, Dr. Picker’s vaccine could be the breakthrough that AIDS patients and their doctors have been waiting for.