The AIDS pandemic continues to be a huge global health challenge. In the US, EU and Japan, those living with AIDS have been able to manage their disease through the use of modes of therapies discovered in the early- and mid-90's. Unfortunately, these populations are now showing resistance to these therapies. In addition, in the Developing World, many people with HIV/AIDS receive no therapy at all. The world's AIDS populations need new and different types of therapies.

Merck has recently received approval for ISENTRESS, an HIV therapy based on a new mode of action: inhibition of HIV integrase. The commercialization of this new and effective therapy has faced a variety of technical challenges that have been met by Merck's chemical engineers. This talk will describe the global context of the AIDS pandemic, the technical challenges faced by Merck's engineering team in bringing this to market, and the special challenges that are presented by bringing this therapy to the Developing World.

Cavitational reactors are a novel and promising form of multiphase reactors, based on the principle of release of large magnitude of energy due to the violent collapse of the cavities. Use of cavitational reactors for process intensification of several chemical and physical processing applications has been exploited worldwide in recent years. The present talk aims at presenting an overview of design and operation of cavitational reactors also focusing on the different areas of application illustrating some typical case studies.
The initial part of the talk will be devoted to basic concepts of cavitation phenomena and mechanism of observed intensification in different chemical/physical systems. Different designs of cavitational reactors including sonochemical and hydrodynamic cavitation reactors will be discussed and recommendations given for selection of optimum design and operating parameters. Comparison of different reactor configurations will be presented using two criteria of energy efficiency and cavitational yield estimations for different reactions.
The talk will also present some experimental case studies using industrially important operations, highlighting the degree of intensification achieved as compared to the conventional approaches. Overall it appears that considerable economic savings is possible by means of harnessing the spectacular effects of cavitation in chemical and physical processing.