During the 2014 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. Chomont 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. Transcript
Dr. Deeks 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. Transcript
Dr. Garcia-Martinez 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. Transcript
Dr. Palmer discusses her research to identify which cells harbor the largest reservoirs of HIV and are therefore the most important targets for eradicating the virus. Transcript
Dr. Persaud discusses her pediatric cure research and the viral rebound in the Mississippi child, who had been off antiretroviral therapy for more than two years without evidence of HIV. Transcript
Dr. Saez-Cirion 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. Transcript
Dr. Søgaard discusses his team’s use of the anti-cancer drug romidepsin to activate latent HIV reservoirs hiding in the CD4 cells of HIV-positive patients taking antiretroviral therapy. Transcript
Dr. Jan van Lunzen 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. Transcript