From left to right: Suba Iyer, Dongyang Yu, Liane Agulto, Alyson Yoder, Jeremy Kelly, Zhongwei Tang, Li Dong and Yuntao Wu.

We are very excited to be able to support the remarkable research coming out of Dr. Wu's Manassas, VA lab at George Mason University. We're also thrilled that his dedicated team has volunteered to take a few days away from the lab to both ride and provide crew support to our riders!

Dr. Wu, who is only 40, has spent the past six years decoding the process by which the HIV virus attacks T cells. This is the very "return to basic science" that was recently called for by Dr. Robert Gallo, the co-discoverer of the HIV virus. Dr. Wu believes that the next level of therapies will not come in the form of a vaccine or cure, to totally eliminate the virus from the body. Rather, he is focused on keeping the virus from multiplying within a host body.

By raising $200,000 for the next stage of research, we will enable this promising young scientist and his team to accelerate his research and bring us closer to defeating HIV and AIDS.

Read what the Fairfax Times wrote about Dr. Wu in its June 25th edition:

Virologist Dr. Yuntao Wu of George Mason University may be able to stop HIV, he just needs the funding.

The cocktail of toxic drugs prescribed for HIV patients halts viral replication, keeping the virus at bay. But it only takes weeks for a viral rebound after therapy is discontinued.

The goal is to get people off the drugs and kill the virus.

HIV resurfaces because of a reservoir of fortified human cells, allowing the virus to remain in an infectious state, immune to anti-retroviral drugs.

Wu's “Trojan horse” concept cleans out infected HIV microphages, or white blood cells, replacing the HIV with anthrax.

Because WU's artificial particle looks like HIV, it has to rely on HIV protein, selectively killing off neighboring infected cells.

So far, in a test tube, the study has yielded positive results. The next phase of research will have to involve animal testing, with costs running into hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“The test works very well, not 100-percent effective yet, but it can kill a large number of infected cells," Wu said. "The problem is that (human) bodies are very complicated, but test tubes are easy."

There is “a lot of pressure, especially in our field. Funding is very tight,” Wu said, because “90 percent of HIV/AIDS research projects applying for grants can't get funding.”

Wu said his research stands alone in the world. Having developed the concept since 2001, he said initial lab work to final FDA approval to mass distribution takes a minimum of 10 years.