CFAR Academic Investigation Dinner Seminar & Soiree
(CFAR AIDS Soiree)
The Emory CFAR Academic Investigation Dinner Seminar and Soiree (CFAR AIDS Soiree) meets periodically throughout the year between September and May. Membership in the club is free and open to all people interested in HIV/AIDS-related basic, clinical, behavioral, social, or translational research as well as research-based clinical, prevention, and educational practice.
CLUB MASCOT
Pan troglodytes troglodytes (Central Common Chimpanzee)
A member of the Great Ape family that is genetically almost identical to humans.
Sometime around 1930, an unknown bushmeat hunter in southeastern Cameroon, west-central Africa, probably acquired the worldís first case of HIV-1 from a chimpanzee who was infected with a Simian (ape) version of immunodeficiency virus (SIVcpz). When the bushmeat hunter cut himself while skinning the infected chimpanzee he had trapped, SIVcpz jumped species and took up residence in the hunter as Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1). Chimpanzees are not usually made ill by either SIV or HIV and, despite our genetic similarity, the reason why chimpanzees can remain healthy when infected with a virus that has killed over 25 million humans remains an unanswered research question to this day.
