Dr. Gerhard Bauer
Director of the UC Davis Good
Manufacturing Practice Facility

(Click on the picture above for postcard and free parking information)

Tuesday, December 8th
6:00 - 7:00 pm
University Union, Ballroom 1

The Sacramento State STEM Public Lecture Series welcomes Dr. Gerhard Bauer from UC Davis. His talk titled "HIV Gene Therapy" will address a new gene therapy approach to treating HIV infection.

Gene therapy for HIV is based on the concept that human cells can be made resistant to the detrimental effects of HIV by the insertion of anti-HIV genes into the genome of HIV target cells. A wide variety of anti-HIV genes have been developed, interfering with the life cycle of HIV at various stages, and making it impossible for HIV to enter a cell or replicate in it. All target cells for HIV are derived from hematopoietic stem cells which are found in the bone marrow and give rise to a variety of mature blood cell types. Dr. Bauer's therapeutic approach is based on the insertion of anti-HIV genes into hematopoietic stem cells of an HIV infected individual, thus causing all newly arising HIV target cells to be resistant to HIV, and thereby preventing the virus from replicating. This would in effect lead to an HIV resistant immune system and potentially eliminate any remaining HIV. Bauer and Joseph Anderson, of the UC Davis stem cell program, have developed a highly potent combination of anti-HIV genes that simultaneously target 3 different parts of the HIV life cycle preventing the virus from entering and integrating. This novel approach offers a possible path to a cure for HIV.

Speaker Bio:

Born in Austria, Dr. Bauer attended college and medical school in Vienna before moving to the US in the late 1980s to run the HIV research laboratory at the University of Maryland at Baltimore. A few years later he accepted a job at the Johns Hopkins University and started the development of clinical stem cell gene therapy for HIV. In 1995 he moved to Los Angeles to accept a position at the University of Southern California, Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA), where he developed clinical grade transduction and cell processing procedures and performed the clinical trials of stem cell gene therapy. At CHLA he also started with the development, design and implementation of academic Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) facilities for cellular therapies.  In 2006 he was recruited to UC Davis to be part of the new Stem Cell Program where he designed and currently directs an improved GMP facility that has received excellent reviews in the major facilities grant application to the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). CIRM has awarded 20 million dollars to UC Davis to build the UC Davis Institute for Regenerative Cures, of which the GMP facility is an integral part. Dr. Bauer also heads the HIV disease team within the Stem Cell Program, continuing the development of gene therapy for HIV. With his team he successfully established a novel mouse model engrafted with human hematopoietic stem cells, allowing for the development of a functional human immune system in the animal. With this model it is possible to recapitulate HIV infection and T cell depletion in vivo, and test novel treatments and vaccines for HIV and AIDS, particularly gene therapy for HIV.

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