Joining the quest for an HIV vaccine

Vanier scholar and PhD student Jennifer Juno is part of a world-class research team searching for answers in the quest for an HIV vaccine.

In particular, her team is examining whether a group of women in Nairobi, Kenya, who have a specific genetic variant, progress more quickly or slowly to AIDS when they are infected with HIV than women without the variant.

“The goal of my project is to understand what factors influence the rate of HIV progression, and to determine whether that could be translated into improved treatment options,” says Juno, who is studying medical microbiology and infectious diseases at the University of Manitoba. In addition, Juno is trying to understand how the immune system becomes dysfunctional during HIV infection and how better treatments could be developed to combat this situation.

Canada—and Manitoba in particular—is home to some of the world’s best HIV/AIDS researchers and laboratories. Canada’s world renowned status and capacity in the field was a huge part of what convinced Juno to stay in Canada for her doctoral studies, winning a Vanier scholarship was the other.

According to Juno, the Vanier has been very helpful by allowing her to travel in support of her research. She’s been to Nairobi twice for clinical work, and to other places around the world for important international conferences, such as the 2010 International Congress of Immunology in Japan. “It’s been very important in furthering my career,” she says. 

Juno decided to focus on HIV because of the worldwide impact of the disease. She intends to pursue a career in research and she believes the Vanier scholarship is an excellent jumping-off point to a successful career.