Oct. 17, 2003

Contact: John Scarffe, KU Endowment Association, (785) 832-7336.

Chancellors Club honors internationally known scientist at KU

This release is embargoed until 8 p.m. today.

LAWRENCE -- Opendra "Bill" Narayan, internationally recognized scientist and pioneer in AIDS research, is the recipient of the 2003 Chancellors Club Research Award. Narayan is the Marion Merrell Dow distinguished professor and chair of the Department of Microbiology, Molecular Genetics and Immunology at the University of Kansas School of Medicine in Kansas City, Kan. He received the award tonight at the 26th annual meeting of the Chancellors Club at the Kansas Union ballroom.

The Chancellors Club, established in 1977 by the Kansas University Endowment Association, is KU's major-donor organization. The $5,000 research award honors a KU Medical Center researcher whose work has led to significant scientific discoveries. Colleagues, students and alumni nominate candidates for the award.

"For me, I am flattered," Narayan said, "but it is also a reflection of the work that is going on here at the KU Medical Center."

High-ranking grants from the National Institutes of Health and funding from other national, international, public and private sources have helped maintain Narayan's research for three decades and enabled him to continue teaching junior faculty researchers. In 2001, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the NIH awarded him a $10.5 million grant. The grant is the largest from the NIH for a KU researcher; it enabled Narayan to mentor beginning researchers and give those researchers seed money to develop projects. His current HIV research is funded by more than $2 million in NIH grants.

Narayan began his career in Canada as a veterinary researcher, studying the influenza virus in birds and viral infections in the central nervous systems of mammals. In 1973, he initiated studies on infection in sheep with slow-moving viruses, called lentiviruses. When it was discovered 15 years later that HIV belonged to the lentivirus family, Narayan's research took a new direction.

"When HIV was isolated and it was discovered that it was also a lentivirus, Bill was in an ideal position to play a leadership role," wrote Diane E. Griffin, professor and department chair at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

In 1985, Narayan began focusing his studies on lentiviruses and HIV-induced disease. By the time he joined the KU Medical Center in 1993, he was working exclusively on AIDS research.

Narayan developed his first live HIV vaccine two years later. When the vaccine proved successful in macaque monkeys, Narayan presented his findings to the federal Food and Drug Administration. Although he deemed the vaccine safe for humans, the FDA had concerns with its potential risk of infection and did not approve it for human clinical trials.

Using this experience as a stepping stone, Narayan developed a new vaccine derived from the DNA, or genetic blueprint, of the successful live virus. He explained how the vaccine uses HIV to fight itself.

"It is based on the same genetic principle as HIV," he said, "but by taking out the part of the virus that kills cells, the virus' ability to multiply in the body has been eliminated."

Narayan believes the new vaccine shows great promise for the prevention of HIV infection and as a therapeutic measure to treat people already infected with HIV. He said that work on this new vaccine is a major focus in his lab.

Throughout his career, Narayan has presented his studies at more than 250 major national or international scientific congresses, organizations and various prestigious academic institutions in the United States, South America, Europe and Japan. He has been published in more than 225 peer-reviewed technical publications and nearly 50 book chapters. He has served as a reviewer and member of the editorial boards of several scientific journals and has been appointed to numerous advisory boards, committees and review panels.

Peter G.E. Kennedy, Burton professor of neurology at the University of Glasgow, wrote, "I believe that his published research papers represent an exceptionally distinguished body of work which has earned him recognition as one of the great pioneers in the field of neurovirology."

A native of Guyana, Narayan received his doctorate in veterinary medicine at the University of Toronto in Ontario in 1963 and his doctorate in the mechanisms of viral disease at the University of Guelph in 1970. He held academic appointments at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore for more than 20 years before coming to the KU Medical Center.

Narayan is the 1986 recipient of the prestigious Jacob K. Javits Award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. In 1990, he received the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Senior Scientist Award from West Germany. He also is the 1997 recipient of the Higuchi/Endowment Research Achievement Award at KU.

Hanns Ludwig of the Free University's Institute for Virology in Berlin called Narayan one of the 10 best-known scientists in the world in his field. He wrote, "Your university is lucky to have him as a staff member and leading researcher in the scientific community."

KU Endowment is an independent, nonprofit organization serving as the official fund-raising and fund-management organization for KU. Through 2004, KU Endowment is conducting KU First: Invest in Excellence, the largest fund-raising campaign in KU history, with a goal of $500 million in funds for scholarships, fellowships, professorships, capital projects and program support.