Supported by a $10 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, a 12-member team of Boston College researchers led by associate professor of biology Kenneth Williams (above, with Jessica Button ’10, at left, and doctoral student Jennifer Campbell) is studying ways to control cells that cause a range of cognitive and neurological diseases in AIDS patients. In collaboration with researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, the University of California at San Francisco, the University of Florida, and the University of Hawaii, the Williams team is working to understand the biology of cells that invade the brains of AIDS victims—particularly, harmful forms of white blood cells called “macrophages.” Experiments with monkeys suggest that removing these “bad guy” cells, as Williams calls them, has the potential to “stop or reverse brain disease and AIDS dementia.” Williams and physicians at UCSF and the University of Hawaii will, in the coming year, direct clinical drug trials in Hawaii.