Wall Street Journal: Rare ‘Outliers’ Drive Search for Cures to Disease
The Wall Street Journal profiles Bruce Walker, director of AIDS research at Massachusetts General Hospital, who heads an international consortium of doctors and researchers that has started identifying hundreds of so-called “elite controllers” who fare far better than what doctors typically expect of most people who contract HIV. Researchers are interested in studying how elite controllers avoid developing AIDS and an array of other health problems so as to hopefully replicate the defenses in other people through a vaccine or new drug. Studying these specialized groups has so far yielded important insight into disease and new drugs.

The Times: President Obama ‘may not attend Copenhagen climate summit’
The prospects of a global deal to tackle climate change diminished last night after a senior U.S. Climate Change official downplayed the chances of President Obama attending December’s UN summit in Copenhagen, saying that the president would only attend if sufficient progress was being made in the negotiations. According to the Times, the UK Energy and Climate Change secretary said Obama’s presence in Copenhagen could make all the difference between success and failure, referencing the fact that President Bill Clinton did not attend the Kyoto negotiations in 1997, which may have contributed to the US never signing the Kyoto Protocol.

The Associated Press: No winner for $5 million African leadership prize
In what the Associated Press is calling a “snub to recent ex-presidents and heads of state in Africa,” organizers of The Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership said Monday that they had decided not to give out the award this year. Created in 2007 by Sudanese entrepreneur Mo Ibrahim, the multimillion-dollar annual prize is awarded only to democratically elected heads of state who have left office in the past three years. It is ultimately unclear why the committee was unable to choose a winner as they have opted to not discuss their deliberations.

Los Angeles Times: Results of AIDS vaccine trial ‘weak’ in second analysis
A secondary analysis of data from the Thai AIDS vaccine trial — announced last month to much acclaim — suggests that the vaccine might provide some protection against the virus, but that the results are not statistically significant. In an editorial accompanying the further analysis, however, Dr. Raphael Dolin of Boston said the overall findings were nonetheless “of potentially great importance to the field of HIV research” because they might yield information about the kinds of immune responses necessary to provide protection against the virus.”

Reuters: Experts warn of less money for AIDS research, treatment
HIV experts warned on Monday that the global financial crisis and a loss of interest in the AIDS epidemic may translate into less money in coming years for research, treatment and prevention of the virus. According to an official at the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, “The financial crisis is clearly affecting the capacity of donors to fund international programs on AIDS and let’s not forget that it is also affecting the developing countries that are struggling to keep up with their investments in health.”

Reuters: Sudan says new U.S. policy has “positive points”
The Khartoum government said on Monday that U.S. President Barack Obama’s new policy on Sudan had positive points and was a strategy of engagement, not isolation. Unveiling the policy on Monday, Obama called for a “definitive end” to the conflict in the western Darfur region and implementation of a peace deal that ended more than two decades of a separate north-south civil war. According to Reuters, the strategy offers incentives if Khartoum works toward peace but Sudan faces tougher steps if it fails to act.