Max Essex, D.V.M., Ph.D.

Chairman, HAI
651 Huntington Avenue, FXB 402
Boston, MA 02115
Tel: (617) 432-2334
Fax: (617) 739-8348
e-mail: messex@hsph.harvard.edu

Dr. Max Essex is chairman of HAI and Mary Woodard Lasker Professor Professor of Infectious Diseases at Harvard University at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Dr. Essex was one of the first to link animal and human retroviruses to immuno-suppressive disease, to suspect that a retrovirus was the agent causing AIDS, and to determine that HIV could be transmitted through blood and blood products to hemophiliacs and recipients of blood transfusions. He identified which viral antigens were most useful for blood bank screening and characterized viral antigens for clinical staging. With collaborators, he also provided the first evidence that HIV could be transmitted through heterosexual intercourse.

Dr. Essex and his colleagues have further identified the protein products most closely linked to the lethal effects of HIV. In 1984, he identified gp120, a protein on the surface of HIV that provides the basis for accurate diagnostic tests and epidemiologic monitoring, the most likely target for a vaccine, and a new approach to drug development. Dr. Essex and his colleagues are now enlarging upon this critical discovery to develop an AIDS vaccine.

In the mid-1980s, Dr. Essex and colleagues discovered the simian immunodeficiency virus and a second human immunodeficiency virus, HIV-2, which they have shown to provide partial protection against subsequent infection with HIV-1. Because the genetic structures of the viruses are similar, this work may also provide critical clues to understanding the pathogenesis of HIV-1 and thereby hasten vaccine development.

Since 1985, Dr. Essex and colleagues have worked with collaborators in Dakar, Senegal, where they conduct biological, clinical, and epidemiologic studies on HIV-1 and HIV-2. In addition to operating this large and thriving AIDS research center, Dr. Essex's Senegalese collaborators now train physicians, researchers, epidemiologists, and health care workers from throughout West Africa. More recently, Dr. Essex has focused on building AIDS research collaborations and developing training programs in other countries as well, with a special emphasis on Thailand, India, Mexico, Tanzania, and China.

In 1996, Dr. Essex helped establish the Botswana–HAI Partnership for HIV Research and Education. This partnership is a collaborative research and training initiative forged by the Government of the Republic of Botswana and HAI. To facilitate the partnership’s training and research programs, Dr. Essex helped drive the founding of the Botswana–Harvard HIV Reference Laboratory, which houses epidemiologic and laboratory research. This fully outfitted, state-of-the-art lab, located in Gaborone, the nation’s capital, is the largest of its kind in Southern Africa. The lab currently hosts several vaccine trials.

Recent key observations published from Dr. Essex's laboratory in Science include evidence that HIV-2 can provide partial protection against subsequent infection with HIV-1, and evidence that Asian and African subtypes of HIV-1 are grown more efficiently in cells in the reproductive tract. The latter observation may help explain why heterosexual transmission is more common in Asia and Africa than it is in the United States and Europe.

Dr. Essex holds a doctorate in veterinary medicine from Michigan State University and a doctorate in microbiology from the University of California, Davis. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the highest medical research award given in the United States, the Albert Lasker Medical Research Award, in 1986; the National Cancer Institute's Outstanding Investigator Award; and the American Cancer Society's highest honor, the Bronze Medal. Dr. Essex has authored or coauthored more than 400 scientific articles and has edited six books. He was a contributor and editor of AIDS in Africa, 2nd Edition, and AIDS in Asia.