Malinda grew up in Potosi, Wisconsin, received her undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin with a major in La Crosse BS microbiology.  She completed her graduate and PhD work at the University of Michigan in Immunology.  Her thesis work was on Intracellular Trafficking of MHC-I in normal and HIV-1 Nef expressing cells.  She is currently doing her postdoctoral training at Emory University in Atlanta, GA.

Plywood People: Can you share a bit about the type of work you are doing?

Dr. Malinda Schaefer: Currently, I am working with Dr. Eric Hunter at the Emory Vaccine Center looking at the development of HIV viral diversity, adaptation and immune system evasion within individual HIV positive patients and within a Zambian HIV cohort.  Dr. Susan Allen, also at Emory University, established the Zambian-Emory HIV Research Project (ZEHRP) to provide cohabitating couples with HIV testing, counseling and healthcare, and, specifically, to reduce the transmission rate of HIV between discordant couples (one partner is HIV positive and the other partner is HIV negative).  If a transmission event does occur, the couple is referred to Dr. Hunter to participate in the ongoing studies and projects in his lab.  Specifically, the project I’m working on is directly applicable to HIV vaccine design and development.  Using plasma samples collected every three months we are able to isolate and DNA sequence the HIV genome to determine what viral variant was transmitted and compare it to the viral variants present in the transmitting partner.  We are also able to measure how the virus is changing over time and fraction of the viral variants present in an individual that contains specific changes that occur to escape the immune response.  Then we compare individuals within the cohort to each other and quantify how HIV is adapting at the population level.  This project is informative because if we can understand how HIV is adapting to the immune system at both an individual and population level, then we will be better equipped to design and develop an effective HIV vaccine.

Plywood People: What personally has been the most interesting part of your research for you?

Dr. Schaefer: There are several aspects of my research that are really interesting to me.  The science nerd in me finds it fascinating how quickly HIV adapts to and out smarts the immune system.  I also like learning more about how the human immune system functions by studying HIV immune evasion.  We still have a lot to learn about the human immune system and HIV is giving us clues.

One of the more rewarding experiences I’ve had since starting this project is when my HIV DNA sequence data was used to help design a prospective HIV vaccine in collaboration with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI).  When the project was started, I knew the data generated would be useful and advance the HIV pathogenesis field and I hoped that it would be useful for vaccine design.  But to see that data actually used for vaccine design was really cool.

Plywood People:  You’ve been able to visit the cohort in Zambia and meet some of the study participants.  What was that experience like and how has it changed your perspective on research?

Dr. Schaefer: Sometimes the lab can be a bit sterile and all we receive from the cohort is a tube of plasma labeled with a coded identification number and a date, and it can be easy to detach and forget that every tube of plasma represents a real person.  I don’t know the actual participants that my samples came from because we used coded identification numbers to protect their identities but visiting the Zambian cohort helped me to get to know some of the individuals that participate in our projects and I can remember them when I’m working.  It definitely took any focus off of me and my career and redirected it towards people living with HIV.

The couple I think about the most is one that I met when they came for HIV testing.  When couples come for HIV testing they receive their HIV test results as a couple and share the results with each other right away.  This particular couple came in and I remember them because she was pregnant and he was so caring towards her. When she got her results she started to shake.  She was HIV positive and he was HIV negative.  The husband just took her hand squeezed it as if to say, “I love you”.  She couldn’t really speak, so he talked to the counselor and discussed all the questions about preventing transmission to himself and their baby.  As they were talking with the counselor it came out that she had cared for her dying HIV positive sister and that is probably how she acquired HIV.  Of the individuals I met at the cohort this couple was one that impacted me the most.  I was struck by how caring and supportive and accepting he was towards his wife.  I started to think about the challenges that this couple faced now that they knew she was HIV positive.  This couple is one of the “human faces” I put on the samples I work with and someday I hope the work I do will benefit couples like them.

Plywood People:  How did you become interested in doing this type of HIV research?

Dr. Schaefer: I was in graduate school doing my thesis work studying one of the molecular mechanisms HIV utilizes to evade the immune system.  And while the research was interesting and contributed to our understanding of HIV and how it works, it would be hard to translate it into the clinic, and the research itself didn’t facilitate or foster many thoughts about the global HIV problem.  During this time, World Vision was traveling the country with an exhibit highlighting the AIDS epidemic in Africa called Step into Africa.  Since we were working in an HIV lab, the other graduate students and I decided to go see it. The exhibit was set up so that each person followed the story of an African child that had lost a parent as a direct result of the AIDS epidemic.  These stories really impacted me and started me thinking about the research I was doing in graduate school and I wished that I was doing more to contribute to solving the global AIDS epidemic.  So, when it came time for me to look for a postdoctoral position, I decided to look for a lab that worked in Africa and did research that was directly applicable to either HIV therapeutics or vaccine design.  As I continue my scientific training and career, I hope to stay in HIV research and become more involved in the clinical treatment of HIV and in Africa.

Plywood People:  When thinking about the subject of HIV and AIDS most of us feel as though there’s nothing we can do about it.  What are a few ways that you can recommend that people get involved?

Dr. Schaefer: I think people can start to get involved by learning about HIV, the global AIDS epidemic and talking about it with other people.  In the United States, since the epidemic is small and most HIV positive individuals have access to therapeutics, most of us probably don’t know anyone that is HIV positive and we have forgotten that this is a scary, lifelong and incurable infection.