Where we’re at currently: An update

It’s been a while since the last post on this blog. A lot has been going in the trials unit at St Mary’s, including new trials, endless meetings and lots of hard work in the lab analysing results from the last trial- CUTHIVAC001.

BHIVA (British HIV Association) 2015 took place in Brighton and we are thrilled to say our own Dr Goli Haidari won best poster and gave an excellent presentation. The team live-tweeted some of the talks and raised interesting points, meaning our following online is growning more and more.

In trial terms, the hardwork continues long after the last participant visit of the trial, and as this is being typed members of the team are pouring over notes and completing database work. Our fantastic lab team are also still hard at work everyday.

We have excitingprojects in the pipeline as well as new trials beginning and it’s been a busy time of prep, protocols and conferences. From an educational point of view, we are building on the work started by our research nurse Hazel and bringing in more students over the coming weeks. We have had great responses and feedback from those who visited us at the end of 2014 and the start of this year and we are extremely pleased to see students wanting to get involved in research.

A lot is happening over the next few months and we hope to have a lot of interesting stuff to share, so keep us in mind.

HIV and AIDS stories: What we’ve been reading

Working on HIV vaccine trials is very much about working for a cause and there is a real sense of that among the team here. Every morning, HIV Google alerts ping into our recruiter and marketers inbox, where stories and articles are read and then shared on our social media channels. We don’t stick to only sharing stories about vaccines and research, we try and stay on top of all of the surrounding news and updates. We also take a keen interest in other infectious diseases stories, which is reflected on our Twitter feed.

So here is a selection of links to what we have been reading this week:

Meet the man leading Britain’s fight against Ebola (The Guardian) 

HIV vaccine trial to begin in Zimbabwe, where rates are among the highest in the world (International Business Times) 

What it’s like to be a woman with HIV (US news) 

Empowering women is critical to ending the AIDS epidemic (UNAIDS) 

National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day in the US

March 10th is bookmarked in the US as being National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS awareness day. There’s a lot of postivie activity on social media surrounding the event, including a live White House webcast event.

More can be read about it on the womenshealth.gov website

You can also look up the hashtag #NWGHAAD on Twitter to see the general conversation.

CUTHIVAC001 trial update

Yesterday saw the last vaccine delivered in the CUTHIVAC001 trial. We still have participants coming in for visits, but we are officially finished with the three vaccines for all 30 participants. It’s a great feeling for the team to reach another milestone. It feels like not so long ago we were in the midst of recruiting, with our metro ads, posters, Twitter campaigns and our phone ringing off the hook.

Again, we would like to thank everyone who came forward to enquire about being in CUTHIVAC001, and for the hard work of the whole team. As we go forward in February we will be working hard on the data, as well as preparing for future projects. We are also now having medical students in to spend some time in the unit and experience a day working on clinical trials. One student nurse will be sharing her experiences with us, so keep an eye out. Happy Tuesday!

 

Life in the lab: what is it like to work on a HIV vaccine trial?

Hello! I am one of the research technicians working with an expert team of clinicians, nurses and a recruitment officer in the CUTHIVAC001 trial. ‘CUT’HIVAC’ stands for ‘Cutaneous HIV Vaccination’, and as the name suggests, the project is an innovative needle-free vaccination strategy across the skin to combat HIV and other infectious diseases. The CUTHIVAC001 trial is a Phase I clinical trial to assess the safety and immunogenicity of three DNA immunisations administered via the Intramuscular, Intradermal and transcutaneous routes in healthy male and female volunteers. I am responsible for the laboratory processing and sample analysis aspect of the trial.

I came to be involved in the trial because I am part of the GcLP team based at St Mary’s Hospital, and our team primarily deals with HIV-related clinical studies, particularly in the area of mucosal immunity. I have always been fascinated by the human immunodeficiency virus, even when I learnt about it in University. I started working in Pathology handling a lot of HIV-positive blood samples and doing viral load testing on them. Then one day, as if it was fate, a job opportunity came up to be a research assistant for a HIV research group and I did not hesitate and went for it. I am glad I did because my job teaches me something new every day, not just on a scientific level but so much more, and it is rewarding to know that I am doing my part, however small it may be, to help fight this epidemic.

Being part of the CUTHIVAC001 trial has definitely been an eye opening experience, and a valuable one. I really like the idea of bridging the gap between patients, the medical front line and the laboratory scene to advance research. All three are crucial and it would not be possible to carry on with the trial if one of them was missing. At times, it can be challenging and frustrating, but at the end of day our team has only one goal in our mind – to help make history and striving to find a potential vaccine for HIV prevention. The CUTHIVAC001 trial team were also filmed as part of a HIV research segment for Euronews. I find the whole experience interesting and unforgettable.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who is involved in this trial, especially the volunteers, because without them, the future of HIV research will be a lot grimmer. Together, we can make a difference!

Make clinical trials volunteering a possibility in 2015

Despite it being mid-January, it isn’t too late for one more New Year resolution. Most people start off a new year by deciding to eat healthily, exercise more, give up something that’s bad for you or make a general change in life. Here’s a slightly different resolution- how about volunteering?

Clinical trials need volunteers to make research happen. Without people giving up their time and taking part in studies, new medicines, treatments and techniques would never be developed. While taking part in clinical research might seem daunting and not something you would consider, you can get a wealth of information and even spend time with the research teams before you take part. You can also of course always say ‘no thanks, it’s not for me’, and walk away any time.

The trial that we have been working on here, CUTHIVAC 001, has seen people take part for a variety of different motivations. Something that has been nice to reflect on with participants who have finished, is that they found the experience valuable and were glad they did it. For example, here a few snippets from participant blog posts:

‘My active, physical role in the trial might be over, but my contribution to it isn’t – and it is this that I find to be incredibly fulfilling. The fight against HIV is on-going, and if I can have contributed something meaningful to this fight – either directly or indirectly – then my participation in this trial is worth far more to me than any financial reward.’

‘After a couple of phone conversations with the Trials Nurse and a questionnaire to check if there was anything obvious that excluded me, I booked in for a physical screening. It was really lovely to meet such a caring group of people. Everything was gone over with great care. The science behind the trials is also of great interest and the team were always happy to explain in as much detail as I could understand.’

‘Joking aside, the real reward for participating in such an important clinical trial is that participation is described as “immensely valuable”. In fact, it’s priceless.’

If you feel like you could help in a clinical trial, be it HIV vaccine trials or research in other fields, you can find out information from various sources. Often a quick google search of your local hospitals and their open studies will put you on track to finding out more. You can also check out clinicaltrials.gov for worldwide trials.

Do something different in 2015! Volunteer for a clinical trial!

World AIDS Day

World AIDS Day is here and we want to say a big thanks for supporting us, from the team at Imperial College.

Today we remember there are 35.5 million people living worldwide with HIV, with some parts of the world disproportionately affected.

In the UK around 100,000 people are living with HIV, with 1 in 5 still undiagnosed. The 2 groups most affected are gay and bisexual men and black African heterosexuals.

Today we all remember how far we have come in the fight against HIV. We remember those who have lost their lives, and those who have worked so hard to develop new therapies, support those living with HIV, and raise awareness not just today but all year round.

A special thank you to all our CUTHIVAC volunteers- by giving up your time you are contributing to ongoing and vital research as we continue to work towards a vaccine.

So thank you!

 

World AIDS day- sign up now to help HIV vaccines

 

As World AIDS day approaches next week, the vaccine trial team would like to ask for your support. New trials will be starting in 2015 and to make these work we need participants. Recruiting to trials like these isn’t always easy. We have made great progress with our online presence and gained lots of new Help Make History members, Facebook subscribers and Twitter followers as well as blog readers. However, we still need our database of potential participants to grow.

Taking part in a trial like this might not have crossed your mind before, but you can make a real difference to this important research by doing so. You can see posts from people who have taken part in a vaccine trial and shared their experiences here:

Story of a CUTHIVAC participant

Inspiration and electroporation

By giving us your email address, we can let you know when trials are open to recruitment and provide you with detailed information. If these are of interest to you, you can then let us know. We won’t hound you with endless emails or send you irrelevant information, we will simply inform you of trials you might be interested in taking part in.

The link is to the left, simply click on ‘take part in our online form’ and leave us your name and email address.

The more people who sign up, the more likely our trials are to succeed.

Give your time and together we could advance the prevention of HIV.