Dr. Shaheed Abdulhaqq previously collaborated with Dr. Jonah Sacha at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) on an HIV vaccine project. Guess where he works now, Absci, where he works on HIV-related project.

https://www.absci.com/using-generative-ai-to-unlock-hiv/


“Academic roots coming full circle
For Shaheed, this new Gates Foundation project feels like coming full circle. As a research assistant professor at Oregon Health & Science University, Shaheed worked on an HIV project supported by the foundation, and he even won a foundation award for some of his work.

“The Gates Foundation is a wonderful organization, and I don’t know where the field of HIV research would be without it,” Shaheed says.

He began working on HIV as a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was interested in understanding why some people seemed impervious to HIV infection.

“There are many routes to infection —intravenous drug use, sexual intercourse with an HIV partner, or from mother to unborn child. But for whatever reason, some people just don’t become infected. And my research at that stage was really focused on: what is special about these people? Why are they not getting infected?”