John Hopkins Professor Presents HIV Lecture At Lee

Lee University students, faculty and numerous members of the Cleveland community recently heard about the current research being done on HIV by Dr. James Hildreth, an Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences, and Pathology at John Hopkins School of Medicine.

"Dr. Hildreth is a visionary who backs up his dream with hard work, discipline, and intelligence," said Dr. Dewayne Thompson, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. "He is clearly a man of unusual intelligence who has devoted his career to improving the health of those who can not help themselves--women and children in the developing world.

This is a man with a servant's heart!"

"One of the most interesting aspects of the research that Dr. Hildreth presented was his motivation for doing the research in the first place," said Dr. Al Ruff, an Assistant Professor of Biology at Lee University. "Dr. Hildreth said that women in third-world countries are second, third, and even fourth class citizens and have no control over their sex lives."

According to Dr. Hildreth, many wives have husbands that visit prostitutes, acquire HIV, then pass it on to their spouses and children. In these countries, men have a choice to either be abstinent or at least use condoms, whereas women have no choices at all.

Dr. Hildreth wanted to find a way to protect these innocent women and children, and it would have to be something the women could use without the husband's knowledge. It was this motivation that led to his groundbreaking discovery that HIV needs cholesterol to infect cells.

Cholesterol is a normal component of the cell membrane and the membrane around HIV. If the cholesterol is removed from either the HIV or the cell, the virus cannot infect. This discovery alone was phenomenal and turns out to be true for many viruses not just HIV.

The next discovery was a method to safely remove the cholesterol from the virus or cells. Dr. Hildreth discovered that a compound called betacyclodextrin is able to effectively extract the cholesterol from HIV and cells without any toxic side effects.

As it turns out, this compound is widely used in many household items such as toothpaste, mouthwash, fabric softener, etc.; therefore, its safety has been widely established. Dr. Hildreth said that when this compound is applied vaginally, it lasts for about a week and is able to block HIV infection. It is also very cheap to produce, about $2 for 25 kg - ideal for poor countries.

In addition to blocking sexual transmission of the virus, it is also able to protect newborns from infection. Most newborns are infected with HIV not during pregnancy, but during delivery. Application of this product during labor would be able to block infection during birth and protect these infants.

Dr. Hildreth is an Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences, and Pathology at John Hopkins University. A Rhodes Scholar and a "Young Sciences of the Year" recipient, Dr. Hildreth has done a great deal of research on HIV and its relevance to the clinical setting.

Dr. Hildreth's research focuses on the pathogenesis of AIDS. Key findings made by the Hildreth laboratory include the pivotal role of adhesion molecules, particularly integrins, in HIV biology; the budding and entry of HIV at lipid rafts in cell membranes; and recently, the crucial role of cholesterol in HIV infectivity. Current research in the Hildreth laboratory is focused on developing an effective HIV microbicide based on targeting of lipid rafts and cholesterol and in vivo studies to demonstrate the involvement of adhesion molecules in AIDS pathogenesis in an SIV model. Dr. Hildreth has published more than 70 peer-reviewed papers related to his research.

Dr. Hildreth was born in Camden, Arkansas in 1956. He graduated as valedictorian of Camden High School in 1975 and attended Harvard University as a Harvard Scholarship recipient. He graduated magna cum laude in chemistry in 1979. Dr. Hildreth was selected as a Rhodes Scholar in 1978 and attended Oxford University in England for his doctoral studies. He was awarded a Ph.D. in immunology from Oxford in 1982 and returned the same year to begin studies at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine as a medical student.

He took a leave of absence from his medical studies from 1983 to 1984 to complete a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Pharmacology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He returned to medical school in 1984 and was awarded the MD degree in 1987. Shortly thereafter in the same year, Dr. Hildreth joined the faculty of the Department of Pharmacology at Johns Hopkins as an Assistant Professor. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1994 and in that same year was named the first Associate Dean for Graduate Studies at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, a position he held until January of 2001.

As Associate Dean Dr. Hildreth worked to increase minority enrollment in Hopkins graduate programs and to enhance the training of doctoral students. Among other achievements as dean he founded the Office of Professional Development at the medical school to provide professional skills training to postdoctoral fellows and graduate students. Dr. Hildreth is also Associate Professor of Pathology and participates as a training faculty member in six doctoral and postdoctoral training programs.