Diary Prequel Package — page 414

ag Ebola vaccine Nov. 27, 2014 (Thanksgiving) - Again, still interest in the NEJM paper. Did BBC TV via phone plus my photo, CNN International via phone plus my photo. Also did NewsHour with Judy Woodruff. WETA picked me up with an Uber car and promised to take me to the studio in Arlington, do interview, and get me back in time for Thanksgiving visit and dinner at 4:00 PM at Joanne and Jim's house. They did it on time. Nov. 30, 2014 - Did CNN International discussing Ebola vaccine Dec. 1, 2014 - World AIDS Day. Went to White House and gave main lecture at the WAD ceremonies in the South Court Auditorium. My talk went over so well that they started clapping at the final sequence of slides of the maps of USA and the world becoming free of AIDS even before my talk ended. Also speaking were Susan Rice, Secretary of State John Kerry (shouted out to me), Secretary Burwell (many shout outs to me), Gayle Smith (also praised me), Bishop Yvette Flunder (gave moving sermon/speech). Then panel with Debbie Birx, Mark Dybul, Greg Millett, Helene Gayle - chaired by Sylvia Burwell. Came back to NIH to do walk-through for the POTUS visit to NIH tomorrow. Did CNN International and NPR Morning Edition radio with Scott Horsley. Dec. 2, 2014 - Today was most extraordinary day. Began with a presentation that I made together with Debbie Birx (PEPFAR) at the Russell Senate office building. We made a dual presentation in celebration of world AIDS Day to a group of Senate and House staffers. It went over very well. I rushed back to the NIH in time to do an interview with Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC about the successful phase 1 Ebola vaccine trial conducted here at NIH that was recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine. When I got back to NIH we began the preparation for the 4:00 PM visit by Pres. Obama. It was an extremely successful visit. I led him on a tool of the Vaccine Research Center, gave him a brief introduction of the history of the center, telling him the story about my conversation with Pres. Clinton in December of 1996 when Clinton promised me that he would have a vaccine center built for us on the NIH campus. Nancy Sullivan presented to him on the 2nd Floor of the VRC her work on the development of an Ebola vaccine. We then took him to the 5th floor where Mario Roederer showed him the intricacies of the FACS machine. The President was very relaxed, warm, and highly complementary of me and the NIH. Following the tour of the VRC, I rode with the president in the presidential limousine from the VR across campus to Building 10 where he addressed an overflow crowd of the entire NIH community in Masur auditorium. He thanked me specifically several times during the talk and he thanked various components of the NIH community for their work on Ebola and other important diseases. He specifically gave a shout out to the VRC people, the people who conducted the phase 1 trial, and to the nurses and staff who took care of in October. During his talk to the NIH community, the president gave me many compliments and shout outs. In particular he joked about how had told me how to use FaceTime. In addition, he joked that "Tony and I were findly reminiscing about SARS and H1N1". He then said after a big laugh "that's what