In 1998 Amy travelled throughout Southern and Eastern Africa. For three months she assisted with a study of HIV rates and risk factors among female sex trade workers in Durban, South Africa. Durban was also the site of this year's International Conference on AIDS, at which Amy presented a poster on "Risk factors associated with HIV-positive serostatus among young gay and bisexual men in Canada."

Before moving to Montreal, Amy volunteered regularly at the "Boys R Us" Boystown drop-in centre, where she is well-known to many street-involved Vanguard participants. She was also instrumental in organising the Vancouver site of the VaxGen HIV vaccine trial which began last year.

"What I like most about working with the Vanguard Project is the feeling of coherence and team work," says Amy. "It is a very dynamic and exciting group to be a part of."

Amy has recently submitted two Vanguard-related papers for publication in academic journals, including the results of a collaborative analysis between the Vanguard Project and the Omega Cohort, a similar study of gay and bisexual men in Montreal. She was also a co-author on a Vanguard-related paper and a letter, both published in the journal AIDS in February 2000.

Her work has also been published in the respected medical journals The Lancet and The Journal of the American Medical Association, on the estimated costs of making antiretroviral drugs available in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.

Personal Profile: Amy Weber

Last May, Amy Weber was looking for a job and she got one ­ a job that got her work published in The Lancet and may shape her entire career.

The Nanaimo native graduated from the University of Victoria with a Bachelor of Science degree and was considering her options for graduate school. After reading through the list of faculty at the University of British Columbia, she came across one professor whose work held great interest for her.

After a few weeks of friendly pestering of the Centre's Robert Hogg, she was offered a three month research project. But, Weber wanted more than that. " I've learned that to get work, you have to create work," says Weber. So, she applies to First Job, a B.C. government program designed to help recent graduates get work experience in the science and technology sector. With funding from First Job, Weber turned the three-month project into a full year's work.

"It's been fantastic, says the 24-year-old. "With the resources at the Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, the Centre for Disease Control and the University of British Columbia, it's an ideal situation. I got opportunities I simply would not have had anywhere else."

The study published in The Lancet on the expense of triple-combination therapy in sub-Saharan Africa is described in the accompanying article. Another study on the Costs of Making Triple Combination Anti-HIV Therapy Available to Adults in the Americas by Weber was published in The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Weber is spending her summer volunteering for AIDS organizations in South Africa and hopes to attend graduate school in the fall. After graduation, there's one place Weber knows she would like work. "The Centre would be at the top of my list," she says.

This article appeared in Forecast in December 1999: Amy Weber heads to McGill. 

When we last checked on Amy Weber in the June, 1998 edition of Forecast, she had just finished a 7-month stint working as a researcher at the Centre. During that time Weber managed to have her work published in The Journal of the American Medical Association and The Lancet before heading off on a vacation where she planned to work with AIDS organizations in the developing world.

Since then she traveled throughout Southern and Eastern Africa and worked in South Africa before returning to the Centre in January of 1999 as a researcher with the Vanguard Project. While her epidemiological work Africa and Vancouver were similar, the University of Victoria graduate discovered that the HIV/AIDS situation in Canada and the developing world is worlds apart. "In some countries 30 per cent of the population is HIV positive," Weber explains. "If someone asked me if things would be different for them in Canada, the answer would be yes, they would be on triple-combination drug therapy and would likely see their children grow up."

Weber's experience abroad gave her a new perspective on the challenges facing HIV/AIDS treatment efforts in Canada and around the globe. She began to see the solution as being more than telling people to use condoms and clean needles. "We should be talking about the importance of mental health services and addiction programs," the native of Nanaimo says. "We need to concentrate on stopping the conditions that contribute to the infection.

The 26-year old's experience working in Africa and at the Centre will serve her very well in her Masters' studies in McGill University's Epidemiology and Biostatistics Department. After that, who knows? Weber says that Africa and the Centre are both strong possibilities. "I love working with the people at the Centre," she says. "It makes it very hard to leave."