He's pedaling a dream to beat AIDS

16 March 2005

Patrick Autissier may well be slightly crazy. He wanders the city, buttonholing everyone he can about his cross-country bike ride to raise $2 million to help find an AIDS vaccine.

Autissier is 42, with dark, close-cropped hair, skin taut against the bones of his face and a body-fat ratio that's probably in the single digits. A rare breed of ultra-athlete, Autissier has completed 18 triathlons and nine marathons in the last 20 years.

Last year he came in 17th in the 750-mile Boston-Montreal-Boston bicycle race. This spring he plans to participate in the Race Across America, regarded as "the toughest in the world." The ride begins June 19 in San Diego and ends 3,000 miles away in Atlantic City. Unlike the Tour de France, it's non-stop. It's so risky that a doctor has to constantly monitor their progress.

Autissier says, however, that his biggest risk was four years ago, when he and wife Anne-Cecile left their jobs, sold everything and moved with their two young children from their native France to Belmont. Trained in health sciences, he became a researcher at Beth Israel Deaconess, part of a large team looking to develop a way to stop AIDS.

Autissier speaks movingly of the scourge of AIDS. From the time of his fund-raising kickoff in late January through the end of the race, he figures 2 million more people will become infected - thus the $2 million that became his fund-raising goal.

Autissier convinced the Langham Hotel (the former Meridien) to donate space for fund-raisers. Decathlon USA agreed to provide equipment. Thierry Vankerk-Hoven, the consul general of France in Boston, agreed to help rally the rest of the Boston-based French community to Autissier's cause. Bruce Walker, head of Harvard Medical School's AIDS division, is promoting the ride.

The dangers of the race are quite real. The training is exhausting, taking time from his family. What motivates him? A friend or a relative who died of AIDS perhaps?

Autissier says no. He fell into AIDS research because the job was available. Rather his passion is fueled by a basic human desire to make one's mark on the world.

We had "the dream of living in the USA for a long time," Autissier says. It's sometimes easy to forget that America really is still the land of opportunity. Like many immigrants before him, Autissier probably is a wide-eyed dreamer. Yet it's not some fantasy of fame or personal wealth that drives him.

"I have the unique opportunity of working on both sides of the HIV vaccine development - the scientific side and the money side," he says. Patrick Autissier's American dream is simply to make a difference.