SPEAKER'S PROFILES
Genoveffa Franchini
Dr. Genoveffa Franchini received her M.D. in 1977 from the University of Modena, Italy, and is the chief of the Animal Models&Retroviral Vaccines Section of the National Cancer Institute, USA. She is a world-renowned retrovirologist who has pioneered research on oncogenes and human retroviruses. Dr. Franchini has made significant achievements in retrovirology and translational approaches to prevent human retroviral infections. She has furthered the understanding of HTLV-1 pathogenesis, characterized new viral genes, and explored (Nature 2004) the affect of the host immune response (Nature 2010). Her interest in immunological mechanisms has bettered the understanding of vaccine protection, particularly in the SIV macaque model. Her accomplishments in HIV vaccine development have secured patent rights to the US Government on the use of poxvirus vectors alone or in combination with DNA. One of the vaccines developed and tested in Dr. Franchini's laboratory is in clinical trials in 16,000 volunteers in Thailand. Dr. Franchini's laboratory genetically characterized SIV (Nature 1987) and defined the regulatory function of HIV-1/2 and SIV genes (Science 1986, 1990). She first demonstrated the importance of Vpr in HIV-1 infectivity in macrophages (PNAS, 1990) and the SIV fusion peptide (Science, 1989). Her work in immunological mechanisms furthered the understanding of vaccine efficacy and protection (Nature Medicine, 2005). In the therapeutic arena, Dr. Franchini provided the first proof of principle that vaccination provides transient benefit to SIV-infected macaques (Nature Medicine, 2001), and she pioneered strategies to down-modulate regulators of immune response in HIV-1-infected individuals.
