Remembering those lost to acts of anti-transgender violence

Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) is an annual observance on November 20 that honors the memory of the transgender people whose lives were lost in acts of anti-transgender violence. TDOR was started in 1999 by transgender advocate Gwendolyn Ann Smith as a vigil to honor the memory of Rita Hester, a transgender woman who was killed in 1998. Says Smith, "Transgender Day of Remembrance seeks to highlight the losses we face due to anti-transgender bigotry and violence. I am no stranger to the need to fight for our rights, and the right to simply exist is first and foremost. With so many seeking to erase transgender people -- sometimes in the most brutal ways possible -- it is vitally important that those we lose are remembered, and that we continue to fight for justice."

Sadly, this year's TDOR brought news of yet another act of hateful violence against the LGBTQ+ community. We mourn the loss of the five individuals who were killed at Club Q in Colorado Springs, and honor and remember the transgender lives lost to transphobic violence. We are reminded of our responsibility to stand up against hatred, fight against stigma, and approach our work at the Duke CFAR with compassion and respect for all.

News from the CFAR

There's still time to submit a photo for our World AIDS Day photo campaign. Submit your photo today!

December 1^st is World AIDS Day, a day to “unite to help end HIV and remember those lost to AIDS-related illnesses.” As the Duke Center for AIDS Research (CFAR), we are organizing a photo campaign to commemorate World AIDS Day, spread awareness about HIV-related research happening at the Duke CFAR, and showcase researchers, physicians, and activists working in the HIV space here in the Duke community. We will create a page on our website, a World AIDS Day newsletter, and Twitter campaign to help spread the images within Duke and to our Durham community partners.

Be a part of our campaign! Take a photo wearing your red ribbon (like Dr. John Bartlett below!) and submit it to our campaign. We'll ask you to share a short description of your research or why you choose to rock the ribbon. Please submit your photo by the end of this week to give us time to prepare in advance of World AIDS Day!

Learn more and submit your photo.

New article in Nature Microbiology identifies how stealthy HIV evades drugs and immunity

A recent Duke Health media article highlights findings from a paper led by Ishak Irwan, a graduate student in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology:

"An immune response that likely evolved to help fight infections appears to be the mechanism that drives human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) into a latent state, lurking in cells only to erupt anew, researchers at Duke Health report. Publishing Nov. 14 in the journal Nature Microbiology, the research team provides new insights into the vexing process that makes HIV particularly stealthy, but could also play a role in other viral infections."

Read the Duke media article and paper in Nature Microbiology.

CFAR investigators help solve other infectious disease mysteries

While the Center for AIDS Research focuses our efforts on HIV, many of our CFAR investigators tackle a variety of infectious diseases and health concerns. A recent Duke Daily article highlights a collaboration between Drs. Jason Stout and David Tobin that helped solve a puzzling question about a mid-2000s tuberculosis (TB) outbreak in Wake County.

Read the article.

Submit your nomination for the 2022-23 Outstanding Leadership in Scientific Mentoring Award!

In partnership with the Duke School of Medicine and the Duke Center for AIDS Research (CFAR), the long-standing NIH T32 Duke Interdisciplinary Research Training Program in HIV/AIDS (IRTPA) has recognized the outstanding and important leadership role of early career investigators in: generating a scientifically rigorous and inclusive environment to mentor early career scientists and colleagues & supporting the innovation of their own research to advance scientific knowledge to improve human health.

Deadline: December 1, 2022.

Submit a nomination.

Fast Track Cities Durham World AIDS Day 2022 Virtual Event: "That Was Then; This is Now"

Thursday, December 1st, 2022 | 4-5pm ET | 4 N. Blount St, Raleigh, NC 27601

Hear from affected people, researchers and intervention experts on how to achieve the White House Plan to end the HIV/AIDS pandemic by 2030. Speakers include three members of our newly formed Durham-Duke CFAR Collaborative Community Council: Eugenia Rogers, Rita McDaniel, and Jimmy Gibbs.

Fast Track Cities Durham World AIDS Day 2022 Virtual Event: "That Was Then; This is Now"

Thursday, December 1st, 2022 | 6-7pm ET | Zoom

Mark your calendars for Fast Track Cities Durham and Durham County Department of Public Health’s virtual World AIDS Day Event 2022.

Our local theme is “That Was Then; This Is Now” and this year’s global theme is “Putting Ourselves To The Test: Achieving Equity to End HIV” and it aligns beautifully with our local theme. We have a stellar lineup of presenters to commemorate this auspicious occasion.

This virtual event is free and open to the public.

Zoom information: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89056333257?pwd=bXNUOUVJT2dvNFYyaDRaMzd1ZUdSZz09

Registration deadline TODAY: 12th Annual Duke-UNC Symposium on Viral Oncology and AIDS Malignancy

Thursday, December 8th, 2022 | 9am-3pm ET | Great Hall at the Trent Semans Center

Register now for the 2022 Duke-UNC Symposium on Viral Oncology and AIDS Malignancy.

Speakers:

• Ethel Cesarman, MD, PhD, Professor, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine -"Tackling Latent Herpesviral Infection in Lymphoma and KS"  
• Jae Jung, PhD, Chair and Director, Department of Cancer Biology & Infection Biology, Lerner Research Institute at Cleveland Clinic - "Metabolic Regulation of Gammaherpesvirus-associated Oncogenesis"
• John T. Schiller, PhD, NIH Distinguished Investigator, NCI, Deputy Chief, Laboratory of Cellular Oncology, Head, Neoplastic Disease Section - "On the Road to Single Dose HPV Vaccination: The Final Steps"

Please consider presenting a poster even if your work is not specifically related to viral oncology. We would like to encourage poster presentation by scientists and trainees broadly in the fields of virology and oncology.  Our hope is to bring together scientists in these two disciplines to cross-pollinate ideas and seed collaboration. Final results are not required, and ‘works in progress’ and posters that have been recently presented at other meetings are welcome. Several student/postdoc abstracts will be selected for short talks (10-15 minutes). Please indicate if you would like to be considered for a talk when you register.

Registration is free but required for planning purposes. Please register by Wednesday, November 23.

Register for the symposium.

SBS Core Rocket Talk - HIV Science and Interdisciplinary Fields: Communicating scientific research and findings across disciplines

Monday, December 12th, 2022 | 4-5pm ET | Zoom

Please join us for December’s Rocket Talk hosted by the CFAR Social and Behavioral Sciences Core. This talk will touch on communicating HIV scientific research and findings across disciplines as part of a series of talks around Science Communication. Dr. Ariana Eily of Elon University and Dr. Christine Daniels of AskBio will present on interdisciplinary science communication.

We hope you will join us for this information-packed session!

Zoom information

Meeting URL: https://duke.zoom.us/j/93554682688?pwd=VUNpNEFEL2RoOFN6VXdKTlpEVnFHZz09

Meeting ID: 935 5468 2688

Passcode: 687669

November Rocket Talk Highlights

Thank you to everyone who attended our November Rocket Talk on Scientific Communication: Media. If you were unable to attend, you can view the recording of the session on the Duke CFAR YouTube page.

This Rocket Talk focused on scientific communication with the media and nonscientific audiences. Mr. Michael Penn presented Going Beyond the Journal: Communicating Research to the Public, which focused on telling scientific stories, finding ways research funnels into public life to create better health outcomes, and six tips for presenting research to the public:

1. Can you say it in one sentence?
2. Write like you speak
3. Open strong
4. Make findings relatable
5. Show, don’t tell
6. Make it personal

Mr. Karl Bates presented on Why We Struggle & What to Do About it, which focused on speaking on scientific data, interpreting results to the public, and four tips for science communication:

1. Structure—get to the point!
2. Watch your language (avoid jargon)
3. Make numbers relatable
4. Focus on story, not data

Save the Date: CFAR Virtual Seminar with Jeffery Jenks

Tuesday, December 13th, 2022 | 4-5pm ET

Save the date for a conversation with Dr. Jeffery Jenks, Medical Director of the Durham County Department of Public Health. Dr. Jenks will present to the Duke community to help provide an understanding of the context of HIV in Durham and implications for us at the Duke CFAR.

Stay tuned for more information and an opportunity to submit questions!

3rd Annual Workshop on How to Incorporate Sex as a Biological Variable in Your Research

Wednesday, December 7th, 2022 | 10am-3pm ET | Zoom

See the above for information about a free, online workshop activity that is co-sponsored by the Emory CFAR, has been approved for Continuing Education credits, and is intended for researchers at all levels whose work includes humans, vertebrate animals (including their blood, tissue, or cell lines) – i.e. everyone subject to the NIH requirement to consider sex as a biological variable (SABV) in their research.

Learn more and register for the workshop.

Registration open for Statistics Workshop - Quantitative Methods for HIV Researchers

Thursdays in January & February 2023 | 9am-12pm ET | Hock Plaza

Registration is now open for Statistics Workshops, Part II of the 3-part series of FREE workshops designed to provide HIV researchers with the quantitative skills necessary for analysis of large, complex data sets resulting from assays such as single-cell RNA-seq, flow cytometry, fMRI, etc. Each part of the series consists of 6 once-a-week workshops held on Thursdays from 9AM - Noon. The workshops will be taught in person at Hock Plaza (parking is available). These NIH-funded workshops are open to graduate students, postdocs, medical fellows, staff and faculty. Non-Duke-affiliated applicants are welcome. Completion of Part I-Data Science Workshops or prior knowledge/ competency in R is required to attend.

In Part II of this workshop series, attendees will learn important concepts in statistics and perform statistical analyses using real HIV data. We will introduce different types of clinical research studies, perform exploratory data analysis with numerical and graphical summaries and introduce hypothesis testing, and appropriate methods for modeling different types of outcomes.

In Part III of this workshop series, attendees will learn skills for analysis of large, complex data sets resulting from assays. Registration for these workshops will open in January 2023.

Register for Part II: Statistics Workshops by Monday, January 9th.

PART II: Statistics Workshops (must commit to attend all 6 sessions)

• Breakdown of an Experiment - 1/19/2023
• Probability, Distributions, and Confidence Intervals - 1/26/2023
• Hypothesis Testing and Power/Sample Size - 2/1/2023
• Paired and Categorical Data Approaches - 2/9/2023
• Regression, Survival, and Longitudinal Models - 2/16/2023
• Bring Your Own Project / High-level Consulting - 2/23/2023

PART III: Assays Workshops registration will open in Jan 2023

Learn more and register for the workshops.

Have a new member of your team? Were you forwarded this newsletter and want to sign up yourself? Please use and share this link to join the CFAR and receive all CFAR information and news.