Photo by Sarah Deragon, Portraits to the People.

The End of HIV? A discussion with Emmy Award-winning journalist, Dr. Seema Yasmin.

In London this spring an HIV patient was “functionally cured” of HIV, one of two case studies which suggest the beginnings of a breakthrough. Does this mark the end of the HIV epidemic? Here in the United States, infections are on the rise in some communities, while doctors in Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Kenya and South Africa struggle to provide HIV patients with medication. What is the future of HIV? How close are we to a cure, and have we come this close before?

On April 16th, Dr. Seema Yasmin, a Stanford professor, visits Kepler’s Literary Foundation to offer insights about the trajectory of the HIV pandemic. Yasmin’s most recent book, The Impatient Dr. Lange, is a stunning account of the last-best effort to cure HIV/AIDS by a doctor who was killed on Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 when the plane was shot out of the sky by pro-Russian rebels in 2014. Dr. Lange died before his work to cure HIV was completed:

“The Impatient Dr. Lange is two things. It is first of all a thrilling history of the investigation of one of the greatest plagues in human history, written by a scientist who intimately understands the challenge that the HIV epidemic posed to humanity. It is also a eulogy for a great scientist, written by his younger protégé. These two strands combine for wonderful reading.”— Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker

Dr. Yasmin will be joined in discussion by San Francisco Chronicle health reporter Erin Allday, who has decades of reporting experience with particular expertise regarding HIV/AIDs in San Francisco. Allday's comprehensive reporting project of 50 longtime survivors, The Last Men Standing, has been made into a feature film available for public viewing through the Chronicle.

Join this award-winning journalist, poet, doctor and author whose experience has kept her on the frontlines of one of the biggest medical questions of this year: Is a cure for HIV in sight?