Infectious Disease

Gero Hütter of Red Cross Germany proposes to use stem cells transplants to cure HIV. He is planning to develop a program that generates a registry of stem cells that lack the CCR5 protein, which is used by HIV to enter into a cell. If successful these adult stem cells could be transplanted into a HIV patient and effectively "cure" HIV.

Daniel Kavanagh of Massachusetts General Hospital in the U.S. proposes to use a novel class of molecular probes to identify and characterize individual cells latently infected with HIV. If successful, this project will identify new markers that may be used to target and eliminate HIV-infected cells.

Adam Spivak from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the U.S. will perform a high-throughput screen to identify novel compounds able to selectively induce cell death in chronically HIV-1 infected cells. Understanding the mechanism of action of such compounds will inform efforts to target and eradicate remaining HIV-1 reservoirs in patients receiving antiretroviral therapy.

Steven R. King of the University of Michigan in the U.S. proposes to engineer HIV proteins that can target and destroy HIV in latently infected cells. If successful, these new anti-viral drugs together with conventional treatments could completely clear the virus from people, resulting in a cure for HIV infection.

Gorica Rakleova of Sofia University in Bulgaria proposes to identify and create a library of HIV-1 integrase variants that are capable of removing virus sequences from infected cell genomes. If successful, these variants could be used as new HIV therapies.

Christof von Kalle of Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum/NCT in Germany will study the genomic location and clonal structure of HIV integration sites in host cells. Finding and eliminating these cells could make antiretroviral therapies more effective and increase the survival of infected individuals.

Linos Vandekerckhove of the University Hospital Ghent in Belgium proposes to analyze biomarkers and mRNA transcripts to discover well-defined biomarkers that can be used to assess the extent of the latent HIV reservoir in patients with an undetectable viral load.

Sumi Biswas of the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford in the United Kingdom will test three components from the mosquito's innate signaling pathways for possible use in a malaria vaccine. Biswas will test whether immunizing mammal hosts with these components can induce strong antibodies, which can be passed along to mosquitoes to enhance the insect's innate immune response, thus leading to the death of the malaria parasite in the vector.

Bent Jakobsen of Immunocore Ltd. in the United Kingdom, collaborating with Cardiff and Oxford Universities, will test whether a novel biologic therapy, engineered from immune cells, can clear virus from latently-infected HIV cells. If successful, the HIV-infected patients could control the disease without retroviral drugs.

Wolf-Dietrich Hardt of ETH Zurich, Institute of Microbiology in Switzerland will study the "swimming" behavior of diarrhea-causing pathogens, which move using tiny tails called flagella, to develop micro-structures that can trap the pathogen before it infects tissues. If successful, these particles could be delivery orally to prevent diarrheal illness without harming commensal gut bacteria that do not swim.