Opendra "Bill" Narayan was an AIDS researcher at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine , located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S., is the academic medical teaching and research arm of Johns Hopkins University. Hopkins has consistently been the nation's number one medical school in the amount of competitive research grants awarded by the National...

 and the University of Kansas Medical Center. A veterinarian, Narayan researched animal models of HIV

HIV

Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...

. His focus on finding a vaccine for retroviral

Retrovirus

A retrovirus is an RNA virus that is duplicated in a host cell using the reverse transcriptase enzyme to produce DNA from its RNA genome. The DNA is then incorporated into the host's genome by an integrase enzyme. The virus thereafter replicates as part of the host cell's DNA...

 infection had some success against a monkey retrovirus, SIV

SIV

SIV or Siv may refer to:* Simian immunodeficiency virus, a virus found in primates and related to HIV* Siv, a character in the children's fiction book series Guardians of Ga'Hoole...

, and he is best known for engineering a type of HIV that could cause AIDS-like disease in monkeys.

Education and training

Born in Guyana

Guyana

Guyana , officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, previously the colony of British Guiana, is a sovereign state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana was a former colony of the Dutch and of the British...

, Narayan earned his doctorate in veterinary medicine (DVM) from the University of Toronto

University of Toronto

The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...

 in 1963. In 1970, he received a PhD

PHD

PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 in virology

Virology

Virology is the study of viruses and virus-like agents: their structure, classification and evolution, their ways to infect and exploit cells for virus reproduction, the diseases they cause, the techniques to isolate and culture them, and their use in research and therapy...

 from the University of Guelph

University of Guelph

The University of Guelph, also known as U of G, is a comprehensive public research university in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. It was established in 1964 after the amalgamation of Ontario Agricultural College, the Macdonald Institute, and the Ontario Veterinary College...

.

Narayan trained as a postdoctoral researcher

Postdoctoral researcher

Postdoctoral research is scholarly research conducted by a person who has recently completed doctoral studies, normally within the previous five years. It is intended to further deepen expertise in a specialist subject, including acquiring novel skills and methods...

 with renowned neurovirologist Richard T. Johnson

Richard T. Johnson

Richard T. Johnson, M.D., is a physician and scientist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Johnson has been a faculty member in the Department of Neurology since its inception in 1969 and is the former head of the department...

 at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine , located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S., is the academic medical teaching and research arm of Johns Hopkins University. Hopkins has consistently been the nation's number one medical school in the amount of competitive research grants awarded by the National...

 beginning in 1972.

Career

Narayan remained at Johns Hopkins as a faculty member and became director of the Retrovirus Biology Laboratory. Narayan left Johns Hopkins in 1992. He moved to the University of Kansas, where he was named Distinguished Professor and director of the Marion Merrell Dow Laboratory of Viral Pathogenesis. Narayan remained at Kansas until his death in 2007. While at the University of Kansas, Narayan received nearly $50 million in grants, including almost $20 million from the National Institutes of Health

National Institutes of Health

The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...

.