Dr. William Heyward
Dr. William Heyward was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1950. He attended both the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health and the Medical College of Georgia, and soon after began working for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the CDC, and moved to Alaska. While he worked for the CDC, he studied hepatitis B, pneumococcal disease, botulism, and Haemophilus influenzae in infants and children. His degree in Epidemiology made him the perfect person to study HIV and AIDS. He began his studying in Alaska, and was, in fact, the first person to study the rate of AIDS and HIV in Alaska.
Biographical Summary of William L. Heyward, MD, MPH
Education and Training: BA Chemistry from Emory University (1968-1972); MD from Medical College of Georgia (1972-1976); internship and residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center (1976-1979); Medical Officer in the Epidemic Intelligence Service at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (1979-1981); Preventive Medicine Residency at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (1980-1982); Masters in Public Health from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health (1986-1987).
Following an internship and residency in Internal Medicine, I worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for over 20 years (1979-2000) as a Commissioned Officer in the U.S. Public Health Service. During this time, I was stationed in Anchorage, Alaska (1979-1986), where I undertook epidemiologic research studies on botulism, hepatitis B virus infection, Haemophilus influenzae type B infections in infants and children, invasive pneumococcal disease, primary liver cancer in Alaskan Natives, and initiated the first surveillance for HIV/AIDS in Alaska. In collaboration with the Indian Health Service, I participated in the conduct of many epidemiologic studies to define the risk factors for infection with hepatitis B virus and its sequelae including primary liver cancer. Following the licensure of a hepatitis B virus preventive vaccine in 1981 by Merck Inc., I was Project Officer on a hepatitis B vaccine demonstration project where 1693 Alaskan Eskimos and Indians at high risk of infection were vaccinated. The project showed the vaccine to be safe, immunogenic and efficacious in preventing infection and was the first study to show that immunization of newborn infants was safe and effective. As a result, a universal immunization campaign was undertaken by the Indian Health Service to vaccinate all Alaskan Native infants, children and adults. Today, the incidence of hepatitis B infection in Alaskan Natives is almost zero. In addition, I started a program to detect early primary liver cancer in long-term carriers of hepatitis B by periodic screening for alpha-feto protein, a serologic marker for liver cancer. This prevention program led to the detection of many preclinical and operable cases of liver cancer resulting in a cure for an otherwise fatal cancer. I also was Project Officer for the first national Phase III trial of a newly developed conjugate vaccine for the prevention of Haemophilus influenzae invasive disease in Alaskan Eskimo and Indian infants and children. Today, there is routine infant immunization for Haemophilus influenzae and the incidence of invasive disease is near zero. After the MPH degree at Johns Hopkins (1986-1987), I returned to CDC headquarters in Atlanta to establish the International AIDS Program. I oversaw epidemiologic studies of HIV/AIDS in Brazil, Honduras, Zaire (now Congo), Guinea Bissau, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, and Thailand. In collaboration with foreign ministries of health, I coordinated the development of CDC field stations for the study of HIV/AIDS in Ivory Coast and Thailand. In 1990, I assumed the Directorship of Projet SIDA (Project AIDS) in Zaire. This project, started by the late Dr. Jonathan Mann (first Director of the Global Program on AIDS at the World Health Organization), provided many of the first epidemiologic studies of HIV/AIDS in Africa. After a revolt led to the evacuation of expatriates in 1991, I returned to Atlanta and then assumed a position in the HIV Vaccine Unit with the Global Program on AIDS, World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland. From 1992-1996, I coordinated preparations to conduct HIV trials in Rwanda, Uganda, Thailand, and Brazil. All of these countries have subsequently undertaken clinical trials with HIV vaccine candidates and furthered the knowledge of HIV vaccine development. In 1995, I was called upon to assist in the investigation of the Ebola virus epidemic in Kikwit, Zaire which killed 245 persons. Following my return to CDC in 1996, I established the first HIV Vaccine Unit at CDC. Over the next four years, I worked with the WHO, Thailand, and the pharmaceutical industry to promote the conduct of the first Phase III trials of a candidate HIV vaccine in the U.S. and Thailand.
Following retirement from CDC in 2000, I assumed the position of V.P. for International Clinical Research with VaxGen, Inc. in Brisbane, CA. For the next four years (2000-2004), I coordinated the conduct of the Phase III trial of a gp120 vaccine among 2500 injecting drug users in Bangkok, Thailand. I also assisted in the conduct of a second Phase III trial of gp120 among 5400 homosexual men and high risk women in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. In addition, I assisted the Walter Reed Army Institute for Research in developing plans for a second Phase III trial in Thailand of a "prime-boost" vaccination strategy with the canary pox vaccine (ALVAC, produced by Aventis) and VaxGen's gp120 vaccine. In 2003, the results of VaxGen's gp120 trials showed the vaccine had no preventive effect, but it demonstrated many scientific data to further the development of the HIV vaccine effort.
After leaving VaxGen in January 2004, I was an independent consultant assisting the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative and the Ministry of Health in Brazil.
In April 2004, I formed a Clinical Research Organization (CRO) called Quattro Clinical Research (QCR) and moved to the San Francisco Bay area. QCR has consulted with many biotech/pharmaceutical companies on infectious disease including HIV/AIDS and meningococcal vaccines, allergy vaccines, vaginal microbicides for the prevention of HIV infection in women of developing countries, and cancer compounds.