The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced this week that it will award approximately $53 million in annual funding across the next five years to 10 research organizations currently pursuing HIV cure research.
“June marked the 40th anniversary of the first reported U.S. cases of what would later be recognized as HIV/AIDS,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). “Remarkable progress has been made in the areas of HIV treatment and prevention since that time. However, we must continue to press for a cure.”
The awards will be administered by the Martin Delaney Collaboratories for HIV Cure Research program, a joint effort between NIAID, the National Institute of Mental Health, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and more. Launched in 2010, that program was meant to honor late HIV/AIDS activist Martin Delaney and hasten HIV cure research through collaborative efforts between academic, private, and government sectors.
The latest round of funding focuses on three areas: basic research on HIV reservoirs and/or post-treatment control; strategies for durable control of viral rebound; and approaches to reducing, eradicating, or inactivating the latent virus. Notably, one of the grants this time will also go to research specifically focused on a cure for infants and children. That award will focus on developing tests, tools, and imaging modalities.
Last renewed in 2016, the program had funded just six programs, but now, with funding expanded by 75 percent, it will extend to 10, ranging from institutions such as the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia. Efforts will include using CRISPR gene-editing technology to inactivate or remove dormant HIV, exploring epigenetic modifiers to block HIV activation, and engineering B cells to express broadly neutralizing antibodies.