Julia García Prado is from Aviles, but at just over 20 she packed her bags to develop her scientific career abroad. Today she is one of the greatest experts on HIV in Spain. She directs a research group at the IrsiCaixa AIDS Institute and is scientific director of the Germans Trias i Pujol Institute –something similar to the Asturian ISPA–, on the Can Ruti biomedical campus in Badalona, Catalonia.
–If we have been able to beat covid in record time, why have we been fighting AIDS for 40 years?
–Perhaps not much is said, but throughout these 40 years different vaccines have been tested. From very classic prototypes, such as attenuated virus vaccines, to very advanced prototypes that are undergoing clinical trials, such as sequential immunization strategies for the generation of antibodies that are capable of blocking the virus. When will the final vaccine come out? It is still unknown. I believe that the important message to send is that work continues and that there are new ideas for vaccines. However, HIV is a very complex virus on a biological level.
-Because?
–For three main factors. First, because it is integrated into our genome, it is part of our cells and then it stays there forever and it is very difficult to eliminate it. A second very particular factor of HIV is that it attacks the cells of the immune system and thereby weakens us and makes it very difficult for us to defend ourselves. And a third factor is that it has a high variability. Within each person there are many variants. Consequently, attacking so many types of the same virus in a very specific way is very complicated.
–We have not won the battle against HIV, but we do keep it at bay…
-That’s very true. There are highly effective treatments that manage to keep the virus, as we say, suppressed in the blood, at undetectable levels. This means that no person treated can transmit the disease to another. But obviously we need new therapeutic strategies.
–Which ones are being developed at IrsiCaixa?
–In my research group we are fundamentally dedicated to attending to the immune system and how it, despite having very good therapies, continues to run out, age and finally stop working. If we want to develop a vaccine against HIV, we must start from the idea that we are dealing with a weakened immune system. In addition to developing immunotherapies to improve the immune system’s response to the virus, work is being done on highly potent antibodies to block the entry of HIV as a cure strategy. Because now our main objective is that: to cure. And we must not forget that many of the advances that have been made in HIV have been applied to covid.
–How is the science that Asturias does from Catalonia?
–I really believe that Asturian research has a lot of quality and has great scientists. But, obviously, this has to be enhanced with the availability of resources and funding so that the groups continue to carry out high-quality and impactful research, and the talent we have can be developed and even attract new people. It is also very important to have institutes of national relevance here.
