HIV Research Pioneer Dr. Robin Weiss Appointed Chair of IAVI’s Scientific Advisory Committee

The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) announces the appointment of Dr. Robin Weiss as Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) effective July 1, 2013, to June 30, 2016. In this capacity, Dr. Weiss will also serve as the SAC representative to the IAVI Board of Directors. Dr. Weiss is Emeritus Professor of Viral Oncology at University College London (UCL) and will be the fourth SAC Chair since IAVI was established in 1996. As SAC Chair, Dr. Weiss follows in the footsteps of previous SAC Chairs Dr. Jaap Goudsmit, Dr. Ian Gust and, most recently, Dr. Reinhard Kurth – whose mandate ended on June 30, 2013. “It is a great honor to serve IAVI and to follow the previous eminent Chairs,” Dr. Weiss said.

“We are delighted that Dr. Weiss, a pioneer in HIV research whose laboratory made seminal findings on the pathogenesis of HIV infection, is rejoining IAVI’s Scientific Advisory Committee to serve as its Chairman. In this capacity, Dr. Weiss will lead a newly reconstituted SAC to provide scientific and strategic advice and counsel to IAVI’s research and development efforts aimed at accelerating global efforts in HIV vaccine development,” said Margaret McGlynn, President and CEO of IAVI.

Dr. Weiss brings a wealth of robust international biomedical research experience with him. He was honored as Fellow or Honorary Doctor several at prestigious institutions, including the Uppsala University in Sweden and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Before moving to UCL in 1999, Dr. Weiss was Director of Research and Professor of Viral Oncology at the Institute of Cancer Research at Royal Marsden Hospital London. Dr. Weiss has been President of the Society for General Microbiology and he is both a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Foreign Associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Weiss has helped lead many renowned medical organizations in a range of Board positions, including the KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute of Tuberculosis and HIV in South Africa funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Breakthrough Breast Cancer in the United Kingdom, and the Foundation for Vaccine Research in Washington, DC. In his research, Dr. Weiss has focused on investigating the interface between cancer and infection, and he is best known for discovering endogenous retroviral genomes and CD4 as the HIV receptor. Dr. Weiss received his PhD in 1969 from the University of London, U.K.