 Hey fam, Raif Derrazy here, and I am in San Francisco at the moment for the annual Hope Collaboratory meeting. HopeCab is something that I'm a part of. It stands for Community Advisory Board. I'm one of the co-chairs for that. And the whole purpose of the HopeCab is for members of the community to be able to come together and work with members of the scientific and research community who are working towards an HIV cure for us to come together, exchange information, exchange knowledge, communicate with each other, and then for the community members to be able to go back to the community and kind of relay that information in a way that is understandable by the LA person. And then the scientists and researchers hopefully walk away with a better understanding of the community and what our concerns and issues and things like that are that that might be able to help and contribute in their research as well. So it's really coming together, bridging those together, mixing them up and seeing what comes out of it. Hopefully something good. We met for a session. It was a room with some art installations placed in the room, and then we kind of split up and basically meditated on this art for 10 minutes, and it was related to HIV. And then at the end we filled out like a questionnaire about what we picked up from it, what was our reactions, how did we feel about it, and then had like a group discussion about it. It was really cool. And then we all got together the Hope Cab, which I'm a part of, and then also the scientists, the researchers, everybody into one big room, and we all had this like molding clay to work with. And so we each kind of just created something out of this molding clay that we were inspired to based on HIV, HIV cure, HIV cure research. So as an aside, there are many modalities that researchers and scientists are exploring towards an HIV cure. There's more than one attack angle, basically. And the one that Hope focuses on is block, lock, and excise. It's blocked by ART, ARVs. It's the medicine that blocks it so that it's basically frozen, stuck in its place, and it gets locked like that in the cell. It's not able to replicate in free flow in the blood and infect other cells and stuff. So it's locked and blocked by ART. The goal is with an HIV cure that we can remove the medicine component, the ART or the ARVs, and it will stay blocked and locked in the cells no matter what. Basically, at that point, you're functionally cured. The third and final step, which isn't necessarily has to happen, because block and lock could do the job all on its own, because you're functionally cured at that point. But if we're able to excise, meaning remove the virus from the cells, then that would be the final stage in the block, lock, excise. Modality, which is what HOPECAB is fixated on, in which the scientists who work with HOPECAB are working towards. And excise would mean pulling out specifically the HIV virus and nothing else. It's like with a scalpel and precision cutting out just the DNA. But like I said, even without that, if the virus is blocked and locked in the cell, unable to replicate, you are functionally cured at that point. You'll make sure that the information communicates both ways bi-directionally between the scientists and our community members who are joining us at this conference. So it's really exciting to be with you all today and to have so many people in the same room going to be making together. Okay, everybody. Welcome. Knowledge is always partial, blur, diaphanous, refracted and incomplete to us. There is no solid answer. Parallax is a key notion that really drives this work on care. That is that when you come from different perspectives, you see different things. So in this diagram, you can see that if you're looking at the object, or in our case, it would be data, if you're looking from B4A and B4B, you actually see two different things. Stigma that still exists and is very well alive and kicking around HIV. And we see it 40 years later with the MPVX slash monkeypox. It seems like we're 40 years down the line and the same racism, homophobes, and discrimination that we saw at the beginning of the HIV epidemic, which happened with SARS-CoV-2, where was discrimination for the against Asian communities. We're seeing it with monkeypox. So stigma is well and alive and kicking and we feel that the arts and bringing together scientists and communities is a really powerful way for all of us to change those narratives. You would sort of automatically put your science mind to it and sort of think about answers. But once you have to start doing this with your hands, it's a total different activity and mindset. And I think it's really amazing how fast you change and actually start to enjoy to think with your hands. And so I'm a chromatin biologist and I admire the beautiful curl chain that usually the DNA is rolled around chromatin. And for me, HIV is sort of a disruption in that curl chain. But I have never tried to build it myself and I've never appreciated how difficult it actually is to build it beautifully symmetrical. So I'm at all how what nature has done and I think I'm really grateful to have that experience now to try to think with my hands and come to no conclusions. Thank you. There's a sort of metaphor of the problem that the scientists are facing. You're not working with something like stone where once you have established something, it stays unchanging. This clay is malleable and as we are working with it, it itself is changing. It seems to me a metaphor for the evolutionary processes that are going on with the virus itself and also with the way the immune system is responding to the virus. It's very hard to get something absolutely firm out of it. So the malleability of this material is a metaphor for the scientific problem that you're working on. I did manage to pull a couple of people aside to talk about what they created, who they are, what they do and what inspired them to create these little sculptures that they did. So check that out right now. This one here. This one, okay. Can you tell us what we're looking at? Yeah, it's kind of a guy being excised from the South DNA like a metaphor for the freedom, which is the idea of a cure. And what are you doing? I'm a postdoc researching the HIV reservoirs and now we are about to start approaching with a spironolactone treatment. Oh, yeah. What is that? What is that? Spironolactone. It's one of the candidates to silencing HIV. So this is the scientific part. And I also, my mother lived with HIV, so I had this emotional connection with this also. And it's a mixed thing for me. The scientific and the emotional connection. And that's it. Thank you. Hello, here I'm just, I'm not like an artist, but I like to do this activity. But here I just try to, these two together, all these two together, because I'm trying to show this life cycle with a human being thinking about how to find the cure with HIV and the sign of HIV and DNA here. And here in the complexity of the cell and all the complexity of the HIV cure research. I'm an ID physician and I'm working in the clinical research center and in lab too. Okay, awesome. Thank you so much. Okay, can you point out which one you created? So I created three pieces. Okay. The first one is this. It's a live protected by a medicine. The second one is this little gentleman here. It's an aspirinolactone pill holding and locking the HIV inside the DNA. Can you, that word, spiral? Spirinolactone is a drug. It's a drug that we are studying to see if we can perform this kind of activity. Protecting from HIV to multiply. Okay. And I realize that I'm the most un-talented person on earth. It's true. That's why I made medicine. I mean, I studied medicine. And can you tell me a little bit about what you do? Yeah, I'm an ID physician. I work at the University of Sao Paulo and we do collaborate within the Hope Collaboratory in the clinical track of our research. So it's been exciting and I'm looking forward to the next follow, the next few years. Yeah. And hopefully we're going to come up with something exciting as well. Yes, I hope so. Excited? Yep. Okay. Thank you so much. Tell me your name? Ashley. Ashley. Okay. Show me which one you made. That guy. Okay. Tell me about that. So when I thought of like a representation of lock and lock, I kind of thought of, in the concept of lock, like something being captured or in jail. Mm-hmm. But it's kind of hard to make a jail out of play. So I made a net out of it. It looks like, yeah, I was going to say. And it's captured the virion and it's kind of like. So it's the HIV in there? Yeah, this is the HIV virion. Virion. Can you tell me what that, because I never heard that term before. That's like a single HIV particle. So more than one is virus? Yeah. And why is virion? Yeah. How do I, you just learned that for the first time in my life? That's great. People use them interchangeably. HIV virion. Okay, love it. But since this guy is by himself. Yeah, that's what I made. Yay. Thank you. And what do you do? I'm a scientist at Gladstone. Okay. So I study both HIV cure research, but I also study HIV transmission. How we can either block it, particularly in women, because they are a very underrepresented population that hasn't been studied. Yeah. Basically how different agents work with it, the female reproductive tract that we can use to block HIV. Interesting. Transmission. Okay. Thank you. So show me what you created. Well, in the comments I made earlier, I said that this working with this material is a metaphor for the scientific problem. Because we're working with viruses and with a human and new system which are evolving. And I was trying to represent a virus which is inside cells. But the whole process is we're gathering insights. Slowly we're trying to understand it. But as my piece has actually shown, the system that I was observing has now already changed and evolved into something different. And that's the problem. And that's kind of the hallmark of HIV. That's the scientific problem that the virus is mutating. The human new system is adapting to the virus. And so the task for scientists is to try and understand the processes as they're changing. And tell us a little bit about what you do. I'm retired now. Back in 1963, I graduated from university in the UK with a degree partner in physiology. But I'm dazzled by how much scientists now are able to do in this field of physiology and biochemistry. I'm just dazzled by the precision of their understanding and the power of the tools they have these days. Well, thank you, Richard. Appreciate it. Thank you. What's your name, first of all? My name is Zichong. I'm in Manling Aus Lab at the Gleisten Institute. And I work in the RF1, research focused one for hope, Collaboratory. Awesome. And this is my artwork. It's a bit nice, very simple. But it's a very deep meaning. Because once HIV got into the cells, as it is rolling the dice, it can choose whether to make new viruses or become sleepy, become dormant. So, in chronically infected patients, most, all of the viruses are dormant. But still, yes, they are dormant, but they still have to take their drugs all over their lives. It's because the dormant virus in their sleep, they are still rolling the dice. They are still trying to figure out whether to activate or not. So, most viruses are dormant? Most, if not all, viruses in chronically infected patients are dormant. That's mind-blowing. I've never heard that before. Yeah. And so, it's just, even though it's just a few that become active, it's enough. It's enough. For the virus to... For the virus to rekindle a whole blown infection. That's why people have to take their drugs all over their lives. Yeah. So, part of my work is to find a way to lower the chance of the virus to become reactivated. Basically, make the number smaller on each side of the dice. Yeah. Because... Is that a permanent change? We hope to achieve a permanent change. We achieve this by changing the way the proteins wrap around the virus DNA. Because once HIV got into the human cells and put its DNA in the human DNA, it's become part of the human DNA. And the cells will be like, this is part of our cells. It's rapidly using proteins. But we are trying to modify how the cells wrap around the HIV DNA to lower the chance of reactivation. Very interesting. Yes. What got you into this field of research? I got into the field of research 12 years ago. Before that, I was from China. I got a master's degree in China studying shrimp viruses. But I got interested in HIV because I had some extensive interactions with HIV-infected people in China while doing volume hearing works. So they are... At that time, 12 years ago, maybe same as now, there's still a lot of sort of stigma and political environment. And more difficulties for those people in China than in the U.S. I came to the U.S. because the U.S. has the best medical research facility. But we are trying to figure out a way to cure HIV for all people in the world, especially in China and other developing countries. So it has to be affordable. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Nice to meet you. This is Pauline. And so tell me about CARE. What is CARE? What does it stand for? So CARE stands for Community Arts Integrated Research and we're part of the Community Engagement section of the HOPE project. It's been so exciting today having everybody make art. And all these pieces have their own stories. It's fantastic. And you brought together I'm a community member, co-chair of our HOPE, and then there's scientists here and researchers and... And CAB members and graduate students and scientists. Such a mix, yeah. And so what are you hoping doing this is going to help achieve for the greater mission of finding the CARE? Well, the CARE program is really focused on creating educational curriculum on how we might present the CARE that HOPE is working on. So we're really trying to find out how is the CARE going to be taken up by people living with HIV and community and public. And so talking to everybody and getting information from everybody is what we're trying to do. And we're using the arts to be that spiritual communication. And you know what I noticed when we were talking about some of these pieces and people reflecting on what their takeaway was is that some people had like aha moments just in working with the clay just in kind of reflecting on certain pieces. And I feel like we often say like in the shower we have these aha moments. And I think scientists and researchers need that just as much as everyone. And if you're too focused on the numbers and the logical don't let your brain get creative and think of solutions in ways that you wouldn't have originally. This is like, does that? Absolutely. No, you're spot on. All right, well, thank you. Thank you, Paul. Hello. My name is Pisse Veruja. I come from Brazil. I'm Paul. Me, I'm not an artist. I think everyone here has come along. So, but I had a great concept that are some broken handcuffs to evidence the process, the multiple process of HIV criminalization. Actually, it's a process that go beyond the criminalization of HIV transmission but concerns to the criminalization of people or against people that lives with HIV. So, I made some broken handcuffs to show what I have been facing for so many times. And I also did this bump. Yes. Yes, the red ribbon. Yes. Yes, that's it. I made this red ribbon to remember us about the importance of being together of uniting communities, scientists, and political politicians to build together strategies to fill this HIV. I'm a transpologist. I'm not an anthropologist. And to tell us what transpologist is. Transpology is a person. Maybe you know I'm a person for social anthropology but I have been studying transgender and travesty people for a while. Transgender in what? Travesty. Travesty is a Brazilian identity which is a distant identity. Feminine, distant identity. You may know as a trans woman here but it's very much specific and perhaps worldwide it is translated as travestite but we cannot translate travesty because it's something rational and very specific about our political social reality. I'm Sara. Sara, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Hi. Okay, so tell me what you created today. Well, I did create the uterus and my rationale is that most of the HIV Q research is still today done on cisgender men but there will be no cure unless we include more women. And so this uterus represents the cisgender women that we need to target in order to. And I think especially in the U.S. people forget how many women are affected by HIV in the world. Yeah, actually more than half of people with HIV in the world are female. Yeah, I would say most people I talk to don't realize, have no idea. Yeah, that's because the face of the epidemics in the U.S. especially like in California is driven by gay men which you know it's unique but it's not the whole story. No, not at all. So. And so what do you do? I'm a virologist. I do HIV research and I am interested in sex and gender difference and I strongly believe that there will be no cure unless all genders are included in our discussions. Thank you so much, sir. Of course, thank you. All right, tell me your name? Davy. Davy. Nice to meet you, Davy. Nice to meet you, I'm Brian. Nice to meet you, Dave. Yeah, thanks. So tell me what you created today. So today I created a little sperm. And it's all about we have to recognize that there's all different parts of the body and it turns out that the male genital tract is one of the prime reservoirs for HIV because immune surveillance doesn't happen there. So immune cells can't get in there to knock out the virus. I did not know that. I bet a lot of people didn't know that. And what do you do? So I am a physician and a scientist and a virologist and working on trying to cure HIV every day. Very cool. Thank you, David. Thank you. So I hope you thought that was cool. I learned some things. I hope you learned some things too. And now we're getting ready to go to the Gladstone Research Institute. This is where the labs are. This is where they do the work, where they do the research and the science. So I'll show you what I can. And yeah, let's go.