A preventative treatment for AIDS is in the works at one Western laboratory.
Across campus, an artist using his life experience has created works of art featuring a cautionary message about the disease.
Last week they came together at the McIntosh Gallery as electron micrographs of the AIDS virus told the scientific story of an epidemic beside an artistic exploration of the disease.
Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry professor and virologist Yong Kang explained his AIDS vaccination research alongside a shroud-like veil of Band-aids draped over a mannequin in the gallery. The Band-Aid installation was part of Hamilton artist Andrew McPhail’s “all my little failures” exhibition – a visual exploration of his life with the disease.
The other installation in McPhail’s exhibition is the word “sorry” spelled out with rubber gloves stretched across a wall and spilling onto the floor.
Since the HIV/AIDS virus was identified in 1981, more than 25 million people have died because of the disease. Forty million around the world are affected by the deadly virus. About 240 people die every hour, Kang said during his presentation.
There are different strains or subtypes of the virus, and they are distributed differently in different parts of the world. Kang’s research focuses on subtype B, which is most prevalent in Europe and North America. The early symptoms of every subtype include ulcers, rashes and fatigue, but AIDS wreaks havoc when the immune system breaks down and the body’s natural defenses become impaired or are overrun.
“With AIDS, the body loses its ability to react to threats, threats like viruses, bacteria and fungus,” Kang says. “There are treatments that can limit the symptoms and reduce the viral load, but they’re not a cure. So we have to focus on prevention.”
McPhail’s exhibition has a prevention theme as well. McPhail is an HIV-positive artist originally from Calgary, Alberta. His multi-media art in this exhibition is inspired by his own experiences of managing his symptoms and a self-described “obsessive hypochondria”. His works explore issues of touch, protection and healing.
“I guess I hope that some people see the humour of it, the simultaneous hopefulness and despair of the Band-Aid as a solution,” McPhail says of his exhibit.
“That seems like the human condition to me.”
In research, the difficulty in protecting humans is that researchers aren’t sure how to use the AIDS virus to create a vaccination. Kang, who has been researching HIV/AIDS for the past 20 years, is developing a vaccine that is unique because it is made from the killed whole virus rather than just segments of it – the latter being an approach tried unsuccessful by other researchers.
Kang’s vaccine has already been tested successfully in an animal model and early stages of human trials could begin within six months – the next step towards his goal of stopping the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
“I’m seeking solutions for a big, devastating epidemic in the world. If we can help people suffering from this disease, that’s a big enough reward – I would be very happy.”