Michael T. Crimmins, Ph.D.
George and Alice Welsh Professor of Chemistry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Dr. Crimmins is a professor of chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with research interests in the development of new synthetic methods and their application to the total synthesis of biologically active compounds. A variety of new synthetic methods have been developed in his laboratories as well as the completion of the total synthesis of a wide variety of structural types of natural products and the synthesis of a series of marine natural products. He is currently a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Organic Chemistry. Born in E. St. Louis, Illinois on January 3, 1954, Dr. Crimmins received his B.A. degree from Hendrix College (1960) and his Ph.D. from Duke (1980), where he worked on synthetic applications of intermolecular photochemical cycloadditions under the direction of Professor Steven W. Baldwin. He was a postdoctoral associate at the California Institute of Technology working with Professor David A. Evans from 1980-81. He joined the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1981 as an assistant professor of chemistry. He was subsequently promoted to associate professor (1988) and professor (1993). In 2001 he was named George and Alice Welsh Distinguished Term Professor and assumed the position of Mary Ann Smith Distinguished Professor in January 2003.

Earl R. Kern, Ph.D.
Research Professor, Pediatric Infectious Diseases, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Dr. Kern is a professor in the department of pediatrics, division of clinical virology and also holds a position as senior scientist at the University of Alabama comprehensive cancer center and the center for AIDS research. He holds secondary appointments in the department of comparative medicine and the department of microbiology. His areas of interest span chemotheraphy and pathogenesis of viral infections in animal models, preclinical evaluation of antiviral drugs, interferon and interferon inducers, immuno-theraphy and nonspecific resistance to viral infections, neuro-virulence and latency of herpesvirus strains, herpesviruses as opportunistic infections in immunocompromised hosts, virulence of drug resistant mutants, antiviral screening against herpesviruses and drug development for poxvirus infections. Dr. Kern received his B.S. degree from the University of Utah in Microbiology followed by his M.S.and Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Utah. Dr. Kern serves on the scientific advisory board of several organizations of the pharmaceutical industry in the areas of virology and antiviral research.

Dennis Liotta, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry, Emory University

Dr. Liotta is a Samuel Candler Dobbs professor of chemistry at Emory University and has been a professor at Emory University for twenty-seven years. He is a fellow of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the recipient of a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher Scholar Fellowship and won an Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award. While at Emory, he has authored more than two hundred research publications and patents. Over the last thirteen years he has also developed a great deal of experience in the discovery and development of pharmaceuticals. He has served as a consultant to several major pharmaceutical firms, including Merck, Glaxo, Burroughs Wellcome, Boehringer Ingelheim and Johnson & Johnson. In addition, he serves (or has served) on the Scientific Advisory Boards (SAB's) of several prominent biotech start-ups (Triangle Pharmaceuticals (SAB Chair), AtheroGenics, Pharmasset (scientific founder), iThemba Pharmaceuticals (scientific founder), Slainte Bioceuticals and FOB Synthesis. In addition, he is the inventor of record for several clinically important antivirals, including FTC (Emtriva, Emtricitabine), D-D4FC (DPC 817, Reverset), Racivir and Elvucitabine. Professor Liotta received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry in 1974 from The City University of New York and completed his post-doctoral training at The Ohio State University.

Douglas D. Richman, M.D.
Professor of Pathology and Medicine, University of California, San Diego

Dr. Richman is a professor of pathology and medicine at the University of California in San Diego and chief of the virology section and director of the research center for AIDS and HIV infection at VA San Diego Healthcare system. He is also the director of the AIDS research institute and the center for AIDS research at the University of California San Diego. Dr. Richman has made major clinical and laboratory contributions to the field of HIV/AIDS, which represent a model of translational medical research. He helped design and conduct the clinical evaluation of new drugs and treatment strategies, including the first trial of combination antiretroviral therapy and the initial study documenting the value of the strategy of rendering HIV RNA undetectable. Two areas of his laboratory investigations represent landmark studies in HIV research. His laboratory first identified HIV drug resistance. This was the scientific foundation for the development of combination antiretroviral therapies. Subsequent studies documented the impact of drug resistance on treatment failure, the presence of mixtures of different viral phenotypes and genotypes circulating in the same patient, the pre-existence of drug-resistant mutants in untreated patients, the impact of disease stage and viral replication on the rates of viral evolution, and the independent evolution of different populations of HIV in lymphoid tissues and the brain. These studies have had a broad impact on the development, evaluation and regulatory approval of drugs, and helped to establish the importance of drug resistance assays in the day-to-day management of infected patients. His laboratory also documented the existence of reservoirs of latently infected CD4 cells in patients who appeared to be "fully suppressed" on potent antiretroviral therapy. These observations have raised fundamental questions about T lymphocyte biology and viral replication that bridge to a basic understanding of viral pathogenesis. More recently, his laboratory elucidated the remarkable evolution of neutralizing antibody responses in HIV infection, providing important insights for the development of an effective HIV vaccine. He plays an authoritative and constructive role as a speaker on both basic and clinical subjects, a lead editor of the major textbook on clinical virology, organizer of major international meetings and chair of national and international committees. 

Richard J. Whitley, M.D.
Professor of Pediatrics, Microbiology & Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Dr. Whitley is professor of pediatrics, microbiology, medicine and neurosurgery and the Loeb Eminent Scholar chair in Pediatrics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is a scientist at the Cancer Research and Training Center, an associate director of the Center for AIDS research, vice chairman of the Department of Pediatrics and division director of Pediatric Infectious Diseases. Additionally, Dr. Whitley has been recognized both nationally and internationally. He is an elected member of the Society for Pediatric Research, the American Pediatric Society, the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. He has been elected to Council for the Infectious Diseases Society of America as well as to Council for the International Infectious Diseases Society. He is on the board of directors of the International Society for Antiviral Research and was the first president of the International Society for Antiviral Research. He has held numerous positions at the National Institutes of Health, including serving on virology study section, chairing the NIAID AIDS data safety and monitoring board and the OAR executive committee. He has received unrestricted research grants from Bristol-Myers Squibb and Glaxo Wellcome. Dr. Whitley has traced the development of therapeutics, defined the natural history and established diagnostic approaches to HSV encephalitis and neonatal HSV infection individually as well as through the NIAID Collaborative Antiviral Study Group of which he is the principal investigator.