William A. Haseltine is a former Harvard Medical School professor and founder of the university's cancer and HIV/AIDS research departments. He also serves as chair and president of the global health think tank ACCESS Health International. He has founded more than a dozen biotechnology companies and is the author, most recently, of Variants! The Shape-Shifting Challenge of COVID-19.
How COVID Changed Science
What is unprecedented is not just the speed and focus with which the community responded to the pandemic but also the singular willingness of scientists all over the world to share new ideas and data immediately and transparently
How Will the Coronavirus Evolve?
If we’re lucky, mutations will make SARS-CoV-2 less lethal, as happened with the 1918 flu—but there’s no guarantee of that
Lessons from AIDS for the COVID-19 Pandemic
We can learn from parallels between the coronavirus and HIV crises
What COVID-19 Reinfection Means for Vaccines
We now know repeat infections are possible. Understanding them will shape the fight against the pandemic
What AIDS Taught Us about Dealing with COVID-19
It’s foolhardy to assume that only some categories of people are at risk
Lessons for COVID-19 from the Early Days of AIDS
A pioneer in the fight against HIV reflects on the dangers of excess optimism about a coronavirus vaccine
The Risks of Rushing a COVID-19 Vaccine
Telescoping testing time lines and approvals may expose all of us to unnecessary dangers
Can We Really Develop a Safe, Effective Coronavirus Vaccine?
We don’t know for sure, but if we can, it probably won’t be easy, cheap or fast
Want to Prevent Another Coronavirus Epidemic?
We need to treat it as the deadly biological threat it is
Beyond Chicken Soup
The antiviral era is upon us, with an array of virus-fighting drugs on the market and in development. Research into viral genomes is fueling much of this progress
Discovering Genes for New Medicines
By identifying human genes involved in disease, researchers can create potentially therapeutic proteins and speed the development of powerful drugs
The Molecular Biology of the AIDS Virus
HIV is genetically complex. An array of regulatory genes enables it to remain latent or replicate at various rates. This intricate control may underlie key features of the disease