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amfAR Intensifies Efforts to Find a Cure for HIV
Announces more than $2 million in new cure-focused research grants
NEW
YORK, Feb. 19, 2014 – Shortly after launching the “Countdown to a
Cure for HIV/AIDS,” a research initiative aimed at finding a
broadly applicable cure for HIV by 2020, amfAR, The Foundation for
AIDS Research on Wednesday announced that it has awarded 12 grants to
researchers in the United States and around the world to pursue
cure-focused HIV research. The new grants total more than $2.15
million, the largest sum disbursed by amfAR focused on HIV cure
research. This round of grants was supported by a donation of
$720,000 from the Foundation for AIDS and Immune Research (FAIR).
“The scientific
challenges to a cure for HIV have been illuminated, and with the
right investments, these challenges can be overcome,” said amfAR
CEO Kevin Robert Frost. “That’s the philosophy behind amfAR’s
“Countdown to a Cure,” and these new grants represent our
strengthened commitment to high-impact, smarter research that will
accelerate our progress toward a cure.”
The new grants
will enable researchers to explore various innovative strategies to
overcome a critical barrier to curing HIV - eliminating reservoirs of
infected cells that persist in various parts of the body and remain
below radar of a person’s immune system or standard anti-HIV drugs.
In the wake of the first report of a child to be cured of HIV a year
ago, Nancy Haigwood and colleagues at Oregon Health and Science
University in Portland, will test the ability of antibodies to limit
the establishment of the viral reservoir in newborns infected with
HIV. In a study that could inform our understanding of how and when
the reservoir is established, Dr. Haigwood’s team will test in
infant macaques the effects of antibodies found to be effective in
controlling HIV in humans.
At the University
of California, San Francisco, Hiroyu Hatano, M.D. and colleagues will
recruit subjects from ongoing studies of PrEP (pre-exposure
prohylaxis). Because these study participants are frequently tested
for HIV, Dr. Hatano believes her team will be able to identify
subjects in the first couple of weeks of infection, when the viral
reservoirs are established. This will allow the researchers to
discover which cells HIV infects at various stages during acute
infection, and how very early treatment might affect the size or
distribution of the reservoir.
Meanwhile, a team
of researchers at the University of Toronto led by Mario Ostrowski,
M.D., is pursuing an entirely different strategy: therapeutic
vaccination. Dr. Ostrowski and colleagues will conduct a small pilot
clinical trial of a therapeutic vaccine to determine whether it can
reduce the size of the reservoir. The vaccine will be tested in
subjects who started antiretroviral therapy within six months of
acquiring HIV and is intended to induce cellular immunity, one arm of
the immune system responsible for killing cells that are infected
with the virus.
“Our scientific
reviewers were unanimous in praising the caliber of research
proposals submitted in this round of awards,” said Dr. Rowena
Johnston, amfAR vice president and director of research. “Our job
is to explore as many routes as possible to get to a broadly
applicable cure, and that means equipping scientists around the world
with the resources they need to help us achieve our goal sooner
rather than later.”
For a complete list of the amfAR-funded researchers and their projects, click here.
About amfAR
amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, is one of the world’s leading nonprofit organizations dedicated to the support of AIDS research, HIV prevention, treatment education, and the advocacy of sound AIDS-related public policy. Since 1985, amfAR has invested more than $388 million in its programs and has awarded more than 3,300 grants to research teams worldwide.
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