New professor will train the immune system to fight HIV
Despite forty years of global research efforts, no one has yet succeeded in curing HIV or even developing a protective vaccine. Ole Schmeltz Søgaard is doing his best to change this. He is a new professor of translational viral research at Aarhus University and Aarhus University Hospital.
Ole Schmeltz Søgaard has been appointed professor at the Department of Clinical Medicine, where he conducts research into how viral infections and the immune system interact with each other. Part of his work involves examining how HIV avoids the immune system and what is required to alter this balance, so that HIV goes from being a life-long chronic infection to being a disease that can be cured with short-term targeted treatment.
The newly-appointed professor is ambitious when it comes to finding a cure or developing a vaccine against HIV – not least now, where researchers in connection with SARS-CoV-2 have shown that it is possible to develop effective vaccines and treatments in less than a year.
Ole Schmeltz Søgaard is currently leading two international randomised trials which aim to strengthen the immune system's ability to control the HIV infection without the need for daily medicine. He is furthermore involved in different projects that examine the role played by specific components in the immune system in relation to controlling viral infections, including COVID-19.
Ole Schmeltz Søgaard's research helps to prevent and cure viral infections using, among other things, immunotherapy, vaccines and antibodies, and is particularly significant for patients living with chronic viral infections such as HIV.
Contact
Professor, MD & PhD Ole Schmeltz Søgaard
Aarhus University, Department of Clinical Medicine and
Aarhus University Hospital, Department of Infectious Diseases
Tel.: (+45) 78 45 28 42
Email: olesoega@rm.dk