Canada: AIDS Researchers in Winnipeg to Brainstorm on New Ways to Fight Disease

More than 75 leading HIV/AIDS researchers from around the world are heading to Winnipeg for a symposium that will seek to "strengthen existing ties between researchers and speed the development of a viable vaccine for HIV/AIDS," said Heather Medwick, acting president of the Winnipeg-based International Center for Infectious Diseases. In particular, the meeting will assemble a consortium of experts to study how to develop an AIDS vaccine based on natural immunity to HIV -- a phenomenon discovered in some Kenyan sex workers in the 1980s. The conference is sponsored in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and also involves the ICID, the University of Manitoba, and the Public Health Agency of Canada.