Curing HIV: Healing the Mind, Body and Spirit

While an HIV cure is the ultimate goal, it is important to also address access and equity issues, so that marginalized communities no longer have to struggle to receive adequate and equal access to health care. Historically, marginalized groups have been exploited in research studies and rarely benefited from medical innovations, due to disparate education and access. This history has created mistrust of clinical scientists within the affected groups. The current research structure expects participants to voluntarily contribute their data to scientific studies without any expectation of benefit or ownership over the medical advancements developed from the studies. This structure leaves participants from marginalized communities disadvantaged. They are bearing the risk of research participation but oen are not benefiting from therapeutic discoveries because of their marginalized status in society and limited access to healthcare. HIV Cure Research Day seeks bold strategies to empower community members to transform the way that scientists, government entities, and businesses engage with low-income and marginalized people about research and healthcare access. The day celebrates the life of Timothy Ray Brown, the first man cured of HIV; highlights advancements in HIV cure science; and facilitates community involvement in identifying novel ways to end the epidemic through research, technology, policy and social justice.

To date, HIV Cure Research Day and the activities of the 2BeatHIV project have hosted more than 25 community events with over 1000 attendees and 75 community partners; generated 450 crowdsourced ideas; helped create 6 new companies; reached 450,000 people online; won several state and national awards; and has been recognized by the NIH and international scholars. In 2021, the Gilead COMPASS Faith Coordinating Center at Wake Forest University adopted responsibility for planning HIV Cure Research Day and leading efforts to promote activities for the 14 Days of HIV Awareness from World AIDS Day (December 1) to HIV Cure Research Day (December 14).