In this episode of Going anti-Viral, Dr Michael Saag speaks with Dr Tonia Poteat, a professor in the Duke University School of Nursing and co-director of the Duke SGM Wellness Program. Dr Poteat joins Dr Saag to provide an overview of a Themed Discussion session that she is leading at CROI 2025 entitled Meeting the Treatment and Prevention Needs of Transgender Women. Dr Poteat and Dr Saag address the 3 most common challenges faced in the care of transgender persons: uninformed clinicians, societal discrimination, and efforts by some state governments and the federal government to limit the rights of transgender persons. They discuss efforts to educate clinicians and summarize the resources that are available to clinicians to help provide care to transgender persons facing stigma and discrimination. They also discuss efforts in the judicial system to take legal action against discriminatory policies of state and federal governments. Dr Poteat also provides an overview of the presentations discussed at the Themed Discussion session that she is leading at CROI 2025 on Monday, March 10, 2025. Finally, Dr Poteat and Dr Saag look ahead to the next five years of transgender care and provide advice to all involved in the care of transgender persons during a challenging time.

In this episode of Going anti-Viral, Dr Michael Saag speaks with Dr Joseph Eron, Professor of Medicine at University of North Carolina (UNC) about the topic of his upcoming presentation at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) 2025: HIV Cure Research: State of the Art and Navigating Presentations at CROI 2025. Dr Eron discusses the state of HIV cure research including a detailed discussion of why it has been so difficult to develop a cure for HIV. Dr Saag and Dr Eron discuss the difference between HIV cure and functional cure and provide a detailed overview of cure research efforts looking at blocking and locking HIV in human DNA. Dr Saag and Dr Eron also discuss the potential for “molecular scissors” (CRISPR-Cas9) to cure HIV. Finally, they provide an overview of cure research that will be presented at CROI, highlighting the plenary presentation by Dr Ole Søgaard at CROI on Monday March 10 entitled HIV Cure: A Translational Research Perspective. For more information about the topic of this episode, listen to an earlier episode of Going anti-Viral where Dr Saag discusses Vaccine Development with Dr Richard Koup, see links in the resources below.

In this episode of Going anti-Viral, Dr Michael Saag speaks with Dr Diane Havlir, Professor of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco. Dr Havlir currently serves as Chair of the Scientific Program Committee for the 2025 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) and joins Dr Saag to provide a preview of CROI 2025. Dr Havlir provides an overview and history of CROI along with a summary of how the program is developed. Dr Saag and Dr Havlir review why CROI is unique among scientific meetings: leading scientific advances, poster sessions, and the focus on supporting new investigators. They also discuss expected hot topics from CROI such as: HIV treatment and cure, STI prevention, weight management, aging and HIV, as well as pediatric and adolescent care. Dr Saag and Dr Havlir provide an overview of resources that will be available to those who will not attend CROI in person. Finally, they discuss the value of CROI during a challenging time for all involved in the field of HIV research, care, and treatment.