Positively Aging Project Symposium | September 20, 2025 A symposium on living and thriving with HIV, featuring high profile keynote speakers and other prominent figures from the HIV/AIDS community.

Legacy: Inspiring Stories of Thriving with AIDS

Second webinar in our series UPDATES ON THE HIV RESERVOIR recorded on June 18th with Drs. Janet Siliciano and Xu Yu, along with advocate Bridgette Picou.

Dr Golkoos Morcos - Pharma D - Medical Director Bios Clinical Research - gives us the CROI update.

A conversation with Loreen Willenberg and Dr. Stephen Migueles about exceptional elite control of HIV without the use of medications. Loreen may be the first person to be considered cured of the virus without a risky bone-marrow transplant or even medications. We have discovered only two people like this so far—and Loreen is one of them! HIV apparently was sequestered in her body in such a way that it could not reproduce, scientists have reported. The finding suggested that Loreen (and the other woman, known as the Esperanza Patient) may have achieved viral control without any therapy. Except for one test years ago that indicated a small amount of virus, researchers were never able to identify HIV in Loreen’s tissues.

A webinar to discuss the Last Gift study with the researchers and long-term survivors of HIV who helped create it. With Jeff Taylor, Sara Gianella Webel, Karine Dubé, Robert Deiss, P. Katie Riggs, and Cheryl Dullano. Most HIV research today is conducted with blood samples. But to cure HIV, we need a better understanding of how the virus hides in all the tissues of the body. We also need to know if the virus circulating in the blood is the same as (or different from) the virus in the heart, lymph nodes, liver, genital tract, or any other tissues throughout the body. The Last Gift is an end-of-life HIV research study being performed at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), with the goal of understanding the behavior of HIV throughout the human body. Altruistic people living with HIV who are at the end of life are eligible to participate in the Last Gift study. The unique samples they give through participating in the study are invaluable in providing an insight to where the virus hides—so we can find ways to combat it, and hopefully find a cure one day.