Dr. Rafick-Pierre Sékaly

In the search for quality of life: taking aim at HIV/AIDS

Thanks to scientists around the world, today we live in an age where remedies are readily available for many ailments. Disease is prevented with one-time vaccinations. And the spread of illness, such as smallpox, typhoid, and polio, have been largely controlled and almost eliminated. One of the scientists contributing to the improved quality of life for humans is Canadian doctor Rafick-Pierre Sékaly. By using new technologies and multidisciplinary approaches, Dr. Sékaly is working to develop vaccines for the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases such as, AIDS, hepatitis C and cancer.

According to Dr. Sékaly, little is known about the nature of the protective immune response and how to measure it for diseases such as HIV, Hepatitis C, and other chronic viruses. To learn more, thousands of samples must be processed--a very time-consuming endeavour. To help speed up this process, Dr. Sékaly and his team are developing tools, including robotic technology. His approach will allow for the standardization of tests and the processing of thousands of samples simultaneously.

Dr. Sékaly is also collaborating in the evaluation of immune response in people who are naturally protected against some virus-induced illness, like AIDS. Early this year (2008), he and individuals from the Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale discovered how a protein found only in certain individuals, called FOX03a, protected them from developing AIDS. Although these individuals had been infected with HIV for many years, they never developed the full-blown illness. This discovery may have important ramifications in the development of new HIV treatments.

Dr. Sékaly holds the Canada Research Chair in Cellular Biology and Biological Imaging for the Study of Infection and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) Immunopathology and is the Director of the National Immune Monitoring Laboratory at the Université de Montréal and the Founder and Scientific Director of the Canadian Network for Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics (CANVAC). He has won multiple awards for his research, including the Cinader Award from the Canadian Society for Immunology (2007). In addition, he became a member of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences in 2006, and was awarded both the Forgaty Fellowship of the National Institutes of Health of Maryland and the Prix du jeune chercheur of the Club de recherches cliniques du Québec.

For further information, please contact Dr. Rafick-Pierre Sékaly by phone at 514 890-8000 ext. 35289