By Kristi Heim

For much of his life Alan Aderem was torn between his passion as a political activist and his budding career in biology. He grew up in South Africa during apartheid and spent five years under house arrest for protesting the regime and the racial injustices he saw around him.

Thirty years later, with the world focused on South Africa as it hosts the World Cup, Aderem is watching intensely, too. But now, as director of the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, another struggle consumes him — stopping HIV/AIDS, and its deadly combination with TB.

"I find it pretty sad that a virus is doing what apartheid wasn't able to do," he said. "It's extremely ironic that here in Africa's renaissance suddenly you've got a virus that is basically decimating the place. I feel both positive and discouraged at some level."

South Africa has the highest number of people living with HIV in the world — nearly 6 million. Its effects are particularly acute among the poor and children made orphans by the disease. Tuberculosis is the leading cause of death for people with HIV/AIDS, and TB cases have skyrocketed in countries like South Africa, where drug-resistant strains have spread.

In Seattle, Aderem, 56, has set his sights on developing an HIV vaccine.

"That's the holy grail," he said.

The quest to conquer the virus has helped his own life come full circle. Science, for him, has become a political act.

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