Diary Prequel Package — page 168

maries. Bruce Miller. etc. Highlight of the evening was the command private performance by Bernadette Peters, who was amazing - talented and beautiful at 60 years old (next month)! I was struck by how short she is in real life. Google lists her as 5'3", but she was about 1.5 inches shorter then I and she had spiked (3 inch) heels on - great looking woman and incredibly nice as we spoke with her after the performance. Jan. 26, 2008 - Activity mostly centered around the Democrat and Republic primaries. McCain surging from way behind, Giuliani is out. Obama closing in on Hillary. Jan. 28, 2008 - Went to White House to nail down with Dan Price, Gary Edson, Patrick Marcham, Mark Dybul, Paul Brown, Bobby Pittman and others the various aspects of the initiatives that the POTUS might want to announce at G-8, or the Upcoming (Feb) Africa trip, or the DC Global Health Summit. My TB vaccine initiative ($40 million) is in. Malaria vaccine and drug discovery is likely out. Neglected Tropical Diseases is in. That night, in the SOTU Address, the POTUS asked for $30 billion for PEPFAR and praised the POTUS Malaria Initiative (PMI). Feb. 1, 2008 - Did dry run of my upcoming presentation to VP Cheney on Bruce Miller. He really liked it. Will soon set up for the VP. Feb. 3, 2008 - NY Giants beat NE Patriots in an upset in the Super bowl played in Phoenix. NY's defensive line kept Tom Brady off balance all night and Eli Manning played incredibly well. Feb. 4, 2008 - CROI meeting in Boston. Went to show the flag, meet with African investigators from Uganda (Rakai) and see vaccine presentations. Ron Desrosiers gave his talk about the imbalance between discovery and development in vaccine agenda and said there is no evidence that any existing vaccine candidate will work. I do not necessarily disagree; however, he was terribly gratuitous in saying that "The NIH has lost its way on vaccine research". It is easy to criticize and place blame...much easier than having creative ideas to solve the problem. He is not a bad guy, but he was an asshole today. Feb. 6, 2008 - Had lunch at café Milano with Franco Nuschese (Owner of Café Milano) to discuss an issue with the United Arab Emirates (UAE). He would like to bring the health minister to the USA and have me show him around the NIH. Also, he wants me to go to UAE and help them with advice about research programs, i.e. establish an NIH-like system in UAE. Franco knows the Middle east well since he has many contacts there and want to help the country develop their biomedical research enterprise. He will arrange appropriate meetings. Feb 8-9, 2008 - Flew to San Francisco and took "red-eye" back to give the Merle Sande memorial Lecture at the Gladstone Institute at SF General Hospital (Mission Bay Campus). Warner Greene (Director, Gladstone) and Tom Quinn arranged the visit. I gave a lecture of "HIV/AIDS in 2008" and paid tribute to merle. Told some stories about our friendship and experiences on the NY Hospital House Staff together where he was