| Ronald Swanstrom, PhD, received his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology studying
herpesvirus gene regulation. He received postdoctoral training in retroviruses at the University of California at
San Francisco before moving to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In the mid 1980s he started working
on the molecular biology of HIV. Over the last 15 years he has worked in a number of areas of AIDS research. The
initial work was with the HIV-1 protease, and this has led to an ongoing interest in the nature of resistance to
protease inhibitors. He has also explored the nature of X4 variants which are able to enter cells using a different
coreceptor. He is part of a collaborative team trying to exploit the Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis vaccine vector
for HIV-1 vaccine development. More recently, he has been exploring patterns of viral sequence variability as a tool
for revealing the nature of virus-host interactions. There are ongoing, active collaborations with scientists in
South Africa, Malawi, China, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. He has served on numerous NIH and ACS review panels. Most
recently, he just completed a four year term on the NIH AIDS study section AARR1. He is currently a member of
the NCI Board of Scientific Counselors, and also serving on the Scientific Program Committee for the International
Workshop on HIV Drug Resistance and Treatment Strategies and for the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic
Infections.
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He has served as a reviewer for numerous journals in virology and biochemistry, has served
on the editorial board for Virology and The Journal of Virology, and is currently serving as an Editor for The Journal
of Virology. In 1998 he became Director of the newly formed UNC Center for AIDS Research. The Center is a collaborative
effort between HIV researchers at UNC Chapel Hill, Family Health International, and Research Triangle Institute.
The Center, which is funded through the NIH, will play an important role in supporting the activities of CAPRISA.
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