A stark advert picturing a gravestone chiselled with ‘AIDS: DON’T DIE OF IGNORANCE’ captured the horror of this disease in the 1980s. Now, for HIV-infected people able to access anti-retroviral therapies, life expectancy is normal.

How were these amazing medicines developed and how have they transformed lives? Why is it so difficult to eradicate HIV or to develop a vaccine to prevent infection? What does the future hold in the quest to stop the global scourge of AIDS?

This lecture was recorded by Matt Higgins on the 16th of September 2026

Matt studied natural sciences at Christ’s College in the University of Cambridge and a Ph.D. in structural biology at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology. He started his research group with a Royal Society University Research Fellowship in 2005 and moved to the University of Oxford in 2010. He is currently the E. P. Abraham Professor of Structural Biology and a Professorial Fellow at Merton College, Oxford. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and a member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation.

The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/hiv-pandemic


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