Boston-area media from WCVB, WHDH, WBZ-TV, NECN and Worcester News Tonight, converged on UMass Medical School on Monday, March 4, to speak to Chancellor Michael F. Collins and John L. Sullivan, MD, professor of pediatrics and molecular medicine, about the recently announced news that UMMS’s own Katherine Luzuriaga, MD, had helped “functionally cure” an infant with HIV.
A two-year-old child born with HIV infection and treated with antiretroviral drugs beginning in the first hours of life no longer has detectable levels of virus using conventional testing despite not taking HIV medication for 10 months, according to findings presented by Dr. Luzuriaga, professor of pediatrics and molecular medicine, at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Atlanta today.
“UMass Medical School’s research reaches around the world and we are very proud of our scientists,” Chancellor Collins said at the press conference, held earlier today. “This is why we do science. This is why medical schools like ours are created.”
UMass Medical School has been on the forefront of HIV research beginning when the virus first started appearing in humans more than 30 years ago. Dr. Sullivan has been collaborating with Luzuriaga on treatments for HIV and the immunology of persistent viruses throughout their careers.
