For Immediate Release
Media Contact: Cub Barrett, Program Communications Manager, cub.barrett@amfar.org,
(212) 806-1602
NEW YORK, September 14, 2012—On the heels of the XIX
International AIDS Conference and progress reported there on the search for a
cure for HIV/AIDS, amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research on Friday announced
three new grants to research teams as part of the Foundation’s two-year-old
amfAR Research Consortium on HIV Eradication (ARCHE).
“There was a lot of discussion at July’s International AIDS
Conference about the importance of collaboration among researchers in the
search for a cure for HIV/AIDS, and amfAR is proud to be one of the leading
organizations funding this kind of important work,” said amfAR CEO Kevin Robert
Frost. “It’s gratifying to know that the work we’re funding through ARCHE is
both building on and contributing to our collective knowledge of how we might
cure HIV, and that scientists working in different fields are coming up with
creative ways to work together and make real progress.”
“In just two years, ARCHE has not only shaken up the AIDS
research world by contributing vital findings to the field, but it has given us
a deeper understanding of how and why some interventions work effectively,” said
amfAR Vice President and Director of Research Dr. Rowena Johnston. “These three
new projects follow up on recent findings, which will hopefully accelerate the
search for a cure that can be applied widely and safely for the 34 million
people who need one.”
Following up on a presentation he made at the International
AIDS Conference, Dr. Timothy Henrich of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston
will use the case of the “Berlin patient”—the only person believed to have been
cured of HIV infection—to examine the mechanisms involved in the patient’s
treatment that contributed to eradicating HIV in his body. The Berlin patient
was cured following treatment for his lymphoma, during which he received a
stem-cell transplant with cells from a donor selected for the CCR5 delta32
mutation, and thus resistant to HIV infection. Two of Dr. Henrich’s
HIV-positive patients, however, went through similar stem-cell treatments using
a donor without the CCR5 mutation and now show no signs of HIV infection. Dr.
Henrich aims to determine which elements of the Berlin patient’s treatment were
critical to his cure—findings that may guide attempts at designing a cure that
could be applied more widely.
Another ARCHE grant will go to Dr. Deborah Persaud of Johns Hopkins University and Dr. Katherine
Luzuriaga of the University of Massachusetts, who hope to determine if it is
possible to cure HIV infection with antiretroviral therapy (ART) alone in
children in whom ART had been started soon after birth and continued for an
average of 15 years. Following a presentation they made at an amfAR think tank
in June about a group of five such children with no detectable HIV and who
remain HIV-antibody negative, Drs. Persaud and Luzuriaga will use highly
sophisticated tests to search for active and latent virus in their patients.
amfAR has long funded research studies dedicated to eradicating HIV in
children, having pioneered research that ultimately led to the use of ART to
block mother-to-child transmission.
A third ARCHE study will continue to investigate the ability
of disulfiram—a drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat
alcoholism—to flush the virus out of latently HIV-infected cells. The study,
conducted by third-time ARCHE grantee Dr. Steven Deeks of the University of
California, San Francisco, and Dr. Julian Elliott of Monash University in
Australia, will build on a smaller clinical study conducted by Dr. Deeks that
suggested that the drug may reverse HIV latency in some subjects. The current
study involves a larger number of subjects, more intensive and wide-ranging
measurements of changes in latent HIV, and several doses of the drug.
ARCHE-funded research teams and their projects are as
follows:
Monash University,
Melbourne, Australia
Julian Elliott, M.D.,
Ph.D. – principal investigator
Steven Deeks, M.D. –
collaborating investigator (UCSF)
$312,070
Short-Term Disulfiram
Administration to Reverse Latent HIV Infection: Drs. Elliott and Deeks will
investigate in a group of HIV-infected subjects the ability of disulfiram to induce
dormant HIV out of latency so that the virus is susceptible to antiretroviral
therapy. This combination approach could lead to a practical means of curing
HIV. In previous ARCHE research disulfiram, a drug approved by the FDA for the
treatment of alcoholism, was identified as able to propel dormant HIV out of
latency in the test tube, and ARCHE research has identified several potential
molecular mechanisms whereby this is achieved. Dr. Deeks previously conducted a
small ARCHE clinical study of disulfiram that suggested the drug is safe in
this population and may reverse HIV latency in some subjects. The current study
involves a larger number of subjects, more intensive and wide-ranging measurements
of changes in latent HIV, and several doses of the drug. This study will
increase our knowledge of the potential for this strategy—reversing HIV latency
and targeting resulting virus outgrowth with antiretroviral therapy—to cure
HIV.
Brigham and Women’s
Hospital, Boston, MA
Timothy Henrich, M.D.
– principal investigator
$105,160
HIV-1 Reservoir
Reduction Following Allogeneic Stem-Cell Transplantation: In the only
confirmed case of an HIV cure to date, the HIV-positive “Berlin patient”
underwent a stem-cell transplant to treat his leukemia. The transplant donor
was a person with an uncommon genetic mutation called CCR5delta32/delta32; people
with this mutation are healthy but in addition are highly resistant to HIV
infection. Before the transplant the Berlin patient underwent intensive
chemotherapy, anti-T cell antibody infusions, and full body irradiation.
Because several different interventions were involved in this one case, it remains
unclear which single intervention or combination thereof was critical to
achieving the HIV cure. Dr. Henrich is treating HIV-positive patients with
various types of cancer that also require stem-cell transplants. His patients
undergo a different chemotherapy regimen, no irradiation, and transplantation
with common donor stem cells lacking the CCR5 mutation. Two of these patients
have no sign of HIV in their bodies, according to studies conducted so far. Dr.
Henrich will conduct more detailed studies of these patients to search for
signs of persistent HIV infection, and will withdraw these patients from their
antiretroviral drugs under very controlled conditions as the strict test to
determine whether these patients have been cured of HIV. This study will help
us understand which elements of the Berlin patient’s treatment were critical to
his cure, and may guide attempts at designing a cure that could be applied more
widely.
Johns Hopkins
University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD
Deborah Persaud, M.D.
– principal investigator
Katherine Luzuriaga,
M.D. – collaborating investigator (UMassMed)
$383,155
Quantifying HIV
Persistence under Early HAART in Children: Children born to HIV-positive
mothers are at risk of acquiring HIV in
utero or during birth. As a result of discoveries made in the mid-1990s,
increasing numbers of infants worldwide are administered antiretroviral therapy
shortly after birth to help prevent HIV transmission. In some infants, this
intervention does not prevent the infection, but such infants then begin
antiretroviral therapy very shortly after infection. Drs. Persaud and Luzuriaga
are treating a number of adolescents who were born HIV positive and began
antiretroviral therapy soon after birth. Their studies so far indicate that in
five such individuals, no virus can be detected and the children test HIV
negative. They plan to investigate more closely how the persistent reservoirs
of virus, as well as the individuals’ immune response to the virus, may differ
from what is commonly seen in people infected as adults, ultimately helping to
determine whether such individuals may be cured. Their studies will shed light
on the potential of antiretroviral therapy to alter the course of infection in
ways that may differ dramatically to infection in adults.