Ana Céspedes, born in Barques, Albacete, is the Director of Global Operations at IAVI, a global organization dedicated to developing vaccines and antibodies for infectious diseases. The daughter of a teacher, Proud La Mancha is passionate about providing health education to her people so that everyone has the opportunity to live a healthy life as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO). Last May, he received the Gold Medal of Castile-La Mancha for his work in health research, development and communication. He lives in New York and has worked in the United States for 11 years. Furthermore, it has always maintained a close connection with our country, Castile-La Mancha and, of course, Albacete.
Yesterday was World AIDS Day. We have to fight millions of different strains of HIV. It’s a tough and difficult main, but since January 2022 there is a great team, the IAVI team, and the woman who leads it, Ana Céspedes. What’s the secret?
IAVI has been committed to AIDS prevention and control since 1996. I joined IAVI in 2018. Over these 25 years, the organization has played a key role in many advancements around the world, and I have been privileged to work here for the past 5 years. We are a team of 400 people located almost everywhere in the world. My job is to lead global operations.
There’s no secret: a lot of work and resilience. The field of research is very complex. In infectious diseases, the situation is more complicated because resources are very limited; cooperation with multiple agents is required; clinical development is very difficult due to its own characteristics (for example, you never know when an outbreak will occur).
What work are you currently doing at IAVI in the field of HIV? What time is it now? Why is it so difficult to develop an AIDS vaccine?
IAVI is committed to leveraging the latest scientific advances in vaccinology to develop HIV vaccines. Given the immense complexity of HIV, traditional vaccine development methods as we know and use them today have proven incapable of producing an effective vaccine against this virus. Now, after years of research, trial and error, science knows a lot about HIV. Today, we are closer than ever to understanding the elements needed to develop an effective HIV vaccine. Specifically, IAVI is currently developing innovative vaccine concepts that, when administered in sequence, will “train” the immune system to produce antibodies capable of blocking HIV infection. We’re still in early-stage clinical trials and efficacy trials, and it will be at least a few years before we know whether this approach actually produces immunity. Developing an HIV vaccine is an extremely complex task, but it remains critical to controlling and ultimately eradicating HIV. There are several reasons why making an HIV vaccine is so difficult. HIV is constantly mutating, at a much faster rate than the Covid-19 virus.
Furthermore, unlike other well-known infections, people living with HIV cannot eliminate the HIV virus. For example, if we consider other viruses (flu, common cold), many infected people develop an effective immune response without vaccination or any medical intervention. They will recover on their own. This has never happened with HIV, so we are still discovering what an effective immune response against HIV looks like biologically.
What technology are these AIDS vaccines being developed by IAVI based on?
In the case of HIV, as I mentioned before, our technology is germline targeting and involves direct stimulation of B cell precursors to produce certain types of highly neutralizing antibodies. We published positive results using proteins and now we are using mRNA.
What deadlines are set for the different stages of vaccine development? If you don’t hit any roadblocks during development, when do you expect it to be ready for launch?
Preliminary studies tell us that we are on the right path to developing a safe and effective HIV vaccine, which is certainly very encouraging for us.
The HIV pandemic has killed more than 40 million people since its emergence four decades ago. How do you assess the global fight against HIV? So what about on a Spanish scale?
We must continue to fight HIV in Spain and around the world. We have made tremendous progress, but we must not forget that millions of people still do not have access to HIV prevention methods or treatments, especially for the most affected countries and for the most vulnerable populations, including women and adolescents. , men who have sex with men, migrants or intravenous drug users. More importantly, the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us all that in a globalized world, no one is safe until everyone is safe. For these reasons, it is critical that we continue to invest in new prevention tools, especially vaccine development, to end the global HIV epidemic.
Today, medication can make an HIV diagnosis no longer a death sentence, but patients still face numerous challenges with physical health, mental health, and social stigma in their daily lives. How would you define the current state of knowledge about diseases like HIV?
Current HIV treatments save countless lives. Its development is a huge step forward in curbing the huge mortality rates we’ve seen previously during the HIV epidemic. That said, the treatments we have today are sometimes difficult to tolerate and must be taken throughout life. This can be very difficult. This is one reason why prevention remains so important and why we must continue to develop new prevention tools.
What do you think institutional treatment for HIV should look like? And socializing?
I think it’s critical to ensure that all people living with HIV have access to the treatment and prevention that we have today. At the same time, global donors, including the EU and the United States, must demonstrate a vision for the future and continue to support research and development efforts to find better, sustainable solutions to tackle the pandemic and ultimately eliminate it.
What can ordinary citizens do to help raise awareness about HIV? What is important so that we don’t forget about this pandemic?
In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, it can be difficult to remember the huge toll wrought by other diseases. But we must never forget the impact of HIV, which has had and continues to have a huge and devastating impact on so many families around the world. We’ve come a long way, and we know there’s more to come, especially with HIV vaccines. We must continue to insist on the importance of research and development on HIV and other infectious diseases that disproportionately affect developing countries, while also considering that research and development on infectious diseases prevalent today is also critical to ensure we are prepared for future pandemic threats. , such as COVID-19. We must continue to defend the vital role of research and development and continue to insist to politicians on the need to invest in research and development of new and better tools to combat and one day eradicate HIV from the planet.