Diary Prequel Package — page 349

July 17 - July 23, 2014 - Attended the 2014 International AIDS Society Meeting in Melbourne, Australia. Before I left, I became aware of a terrible tragedy that had occurred on July 17 the day that I left the NIH to travel to Melbourne. Malaysian Airlines flight 17 from Amsterdam to Melbourne via Kuala Lumpur was shot down by a surface to air missile likely fired by Ukrainian separatists/terrorists. This was to totally dominate the international news over the next days to weeks. I was quoted in most outlets. 297 people were killed including over 100 Dutch. Lost on the flight were six individuals who were flying to the meeting that I attended. Prominent among them was my longtime friend Joep Lange an Infectious Diseases/AIDS researcher from Amsterdam and his wife Jacqueline van Tongeren. In addition, well-known public health advocate and WHO spokesman Glenn Thomas and AIDS action group activist Martíne De Shutter were also on the plane in addition to AIDS activist Pim deKuijer and Dr. Lucie van Mens. I gave a number of media interviews discussing the terrible tragedy and the loss of our colleagues. This appeared in multiple media outlets. In particular, I was interviewed by David Gregory on Meet the Press on Sunday, July 20. The topic of the interview was the mood of the meeting and some personal reflections on Joep Lange. My Plenary Lecture was extremely well received and from my own vibrations of how the audience reacted, as well as how I felt, it clearly was one of the best lectures that I had given. The subject of the lecture with the scientific challenges of an HIV Cure and an HIV vaccine. There were a number of events of note throughout the meeting. Saturday, July 19 - Stayed at Crown Metropol Hotel (very elegant - on of nicest and most confortable hotels on all my international trips). I attended a dinner at a place called Rasheen which is an old and historic building in Melbourne that was formerly the residence of the Archbishop of Melbourne. The dinner was given by the Pratt foundation and the host was Ambassador John Berry, the United States ambassador to Australia. With him was his husband Curtis. I have to leave towards the end of the dinner in order to give an interview live on WTOP radio that was broadcast back in Washington. The interview was about the plane tragedy. Sunday, July 20 - I made a presentation on TB HIV followed by a panel discussion at the Crown Promenade Hotel where I was staying during the meeting. In addition, on that Sunday I made some opening remarks at a Point of Care Symposium that discussed rapid point of care diagnostics for viral load. That evening I went to the Opening Session of the conference which was really not very well done since there were many boring speeches. I had to leave towards the end in order to do the taped version for Meet the Press. Of note, Melbourne is 14 hours ahead of Washington DC. Therefore, even though I taped the Meet the Press session on what was Sunday evening in Melbourne, it was actually early morning in Washington DC. Went to Global Leaders reception at The Cargo Hall on the Wharf after the Opening Ceremony Monday, July 21 - I gave my plenary lecture. In addition I did a filming in celebration of the opening of the Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity. This is an Institute named after Peter Doherty, the Nobel prize-winning Australian immunologist. Peter was the other speaker at my symposium earlier that day. On Monday night I went to a reception at the Red Desert Dreaming Art Gallery at the Hilton Hotel. The reception was