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        AIDS Researcher Wins VA's Middleton Award

        WASHINGTON (February 3, 2003) - Dr. Douglas D. Richman, a virologist
at the San Diego Healthcare System of the Department of Veterans Affairs
(VA), whose research on HIV and AIDS has helped guide treatment for millions
of patients worldwide, will receive the 2002 Middleton Award, VA's highest
honor for biomedical investigators.

        "Dr. Richman is an internationally recognized leader in HIV and AIDS
research," said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony J. Principi. "His
research is directly responsible for major advances in the medical treatment
of people with AIDS and HIV."

        Richman, director of the Research Center for AIDS and HIV Infection
at the San Diego VA and the Center for AIDS Research at the University of
California, San Diego, is noted for his studies of zidovudine, or
azidothymidine (AZT), the first drug approved in the United States to treat
HIV.  He and colleagues established the effectiveness of the drug in
clinical trials in the late 1980s.  Later studies by Richman revealed the
emergence of AZT-resistant strains of HIV.  The appreciation of the
importance of HIV drug resistance and his pioneering studies of combination
therapy led to the development in the 1990s of highly active antiretroviral
therapy (HAART).

        Today, Richman continues to play a major role in setting the
national agenda for AIDS research and care.  Recent research by Richman
showed that more than three-quarters of HIV patients in the United States
with a measurable viral load carry strains of the virus that are resistant
to drug therapy.  The study underscored the need for drug resistance
testing, which helps identify which medications will be effective for a
patient.  Richman has also shown that HAART does not completely eradicate
HIV, but leaves small reservoirs of HIV in immune cells-even when blood
tests show no trace of the virus.

        Amid these findings, Richman is in the forefront of efforts to study
neutralizing antibody to HIV, which may be of particular importance in the
development of an AIDS vaccine.

        Richman is author of more than 450 articles in the medical
literature and is co-editor of the textbook Clinical Virology.  He has
served on the editorial board of 15 journals and is editor-in-chief of
Topics in HIV Medicine and AIDS Therapy.  He is an advisor to the Food and
Drug Administration and the World Health Organization, and serves on the
AIDS Vaccine Research Committee of the National Institutes of Health.
Richman is also a member of the Executive Committee on HIV for VA's Quality
Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI).

        VA established the Middleton Award in 1960 to honor William S.
Middleton, MD, an educator and physician-scientist who served as VA's chief
medical director from 1955 to 1963.  The award is given each year to a
senior VA investigator for major achievements in areas of prime importance
to VA's research mission.


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