In observance of World AIDS Day on December 1, 2025, Center Director Dr. Raphael Landovitz shares a message of resilience and highlights the need for a bold response to help end the HIV epidemic. Read more below.

This World AIDS Day arrives at a moment of profound uncertainty. The global architecture that sustained HIV prevention and care for decades is shifting beneath us. The loss of PEPFAR and USAID funding, coupled with renewed threats to science and research itself, reminds us that progress—no matter how hard-won—is fragile. Yet, while these are unthinkable challenges, they are not unfamiliar ones. The HIV field has always thrived in adversity, forging paths where none were visible, insisting that evidence and empathy must coexist even when the world turns away.

At CHIPTS, we draw strength from that lineage of innovation and resistance. Our mission has never depended on comfort or consensus—it has endured through the conviction that science must be bold, inclusive, and unafraid. As support structures falter, our response cannot be retreat but reinvention: deeper collaboration across disciplines, new models of discovery, and research that continues to center the communities most affected. The times demand not only our intellect, but our imagination—our ability to create, to adapt, and to quietly subvert the forces that would diminish human dignity.

So today, we remember that hope is itself an act of defiance. In the words of Amanda Gorman, from “New Day’s Lyric”:

“For wherever we come together,
We will forever overcome.”

Raphael Landovitz, MD, MSc

CHIPTS Director