Professor Clive Loveday, FIBiol.PhD.FRCPath
ViveBio Collaborator
Professor Loveday started working as a young clinician and scientist in the field of HIV when HIV-1 antibody assay first became available in the United Kingdom (UK). His work was supported by a Medical Research Council (MRC) HIV Natural History Study grant at the Middlesex Hospital. Professor Loveday cared for a cohort of new HIV-positive patients, contributed to a series of clinical studies to understand the pathogenesis of HIV, and ran a series of seroprevalence studies to understand the spread of HIV in the community in the UK. He was the clinician running the Middlesex Hospital arm of the first UK AZT trial.
In 1988 Professor Loveday transferred to clinical virology to head up a team applying the new PCR technology to the study of HIV. The team established a diagnostic PCR assay for the hospital and blood transfusion service (1988), and the first quantitative viral load (1990) and resistance assay (1991) in the world to support patient care. Using these assays, his group was the first to demonstrate the rapid dynamics of HIV replication (1994). During this time, Professor Loveday contributed to international HIV clinical trials and undertook higher professional training as a clinical virologist. In 1996 he became professor and head of the first UK HIV/AIDS department to establish a molecular virology service, and in 1997 he identified the molecular diversity of Non-B subtypes and the loss of signal in the Roche viral load assay. He also contributed to the revision of this assay and wrote the FDA submission for version 1.5. During this time he contributed to MRC and EuroSIDA trials.
In 2002, with the support of the Royal Free Hospital, he devolved the clinical and research activities to the ICVC Charitable Trust. This made the best use of $4 million dollars of financial support from MRC, European Union, and industrial sources to provide optimum clinical care for patients outside the constraints and turmoil of shrinking National Health Service and hospital services in central London. See more here.