Dr. Candace Pert was an internationally recognized pharmacologist who has published over 250 scientific articles on peptides and their receptors and the role of these neuropeptides in the immune system. Dr. Candace Pert received her Ph.D. in pharmacology from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, served as Chief of the Section on Brain Biochemistry of the Clinical Neuroscience Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), held a Research Professorship in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, DC, and then served as the Scientific Director of RAPID Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

In the mid-1980’s, while researching the function of classical immune cell receptors, such as CD4, in brain, Dr. Pert, with her collaborator Dr. Michael Ruff, developed the first of a new class of treatments for HIV/AIDS, the viral entry inhibitor Peptide T. This non-toxic experimental therapeutic blocks the virus from binding to its cellular chemokine receptor CCR5 and infecting the cell. Recent human studies show that Peptide T substantially reduces HIV in the blood and the treatment resistant, persistently infected cellular reservoirs which do not respond to current therapies.

Dr. Pert holds a number of patents for modified peptides in the treatment of psoriasis, Alzheimer’s disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, stroke and head trauma. One of these, peptide T, is currently undergoing research, in the United States, for the treatment of AIDS and neuroAIDS.

More: Interview with Dr Pert :: Dr Pert’s web site