Videos: amfAR Scientists Discuss Their Cutting-Edge HIV Cure Research
During the recently concluded International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, Australia, amfAR Vice President and Director of Research Dr. Rowena Johnston sat down with eight amfAR-funded scientists to discuss their groundbreaking HIV cure research.
Dr. Nicolas Chomont, from the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute of Florida, discusses his research on how reservoirs of HIV persist in patients on long-term antiretroviral therapy who have undetectable viral loads in their blood. It is the inability to eradicate these reservoirs that has made HIV so difficult to cure.
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Dr. Steven Deeks, from University of California, San Francisco, discusses his efforts to better understand the complex relationship between the human immune system and HIV. His ultimate goal is to develop immune-based therapies that can eradicate the hidden viral reservoirs.
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Dr. Victor Garcia-Martinez, from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, discusses his research testing novel approaches to curing HIV in mice reconstituted with human immune system-forming stem cells. This causes them to have responses to HIV similar to those found in humans.
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Dr. Sarah Palmer, from University of Sydney, discusses her research to identify which cells harbor the largest reservoirs of HIV and are therefore the most important targets for eradicating the virus.
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Dr. Deborah Persaud, from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, discusses her work on curing HIV in children and the recent viral rebound in the Mississippi child, who had been off antiretroviral therapy for more than two years without evidence of HIV.
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Dr. Asier Saez-Cirion, from Institut Pasteur, discusses his research investigating the natural mechanisms that prevent HIV from progressing in certain patients, even in the absence of antiretroviral therapy. He is looking at both natural controllers of the virus and at patients able to control the virus after they stop treatment.
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Dr. Ole Søgaard, from Aarhus University, discusses his research on how to activate HIV hiding in latent reservoirs, thereby exposing those viral particles to attack by antiretroviral therapy—a strategy known as “kick and kill.” During the International AIDS Conference, he reported that his team had successfully used the cancer drug romidepsin to activate hidden virus.
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Dr. Jan van Lunzen, from University Medical Center Hamburg, discusses his research on the role of stem cell transplants in curing HIV. The first case of an HIV cure occurred in Timothy Brown, known as “the Berlin patient,” who received a stem cell transplant using cells with the CCR5 delta-32 mutation, which blocks HIV infection.
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