Attacking HIV reservoirs to combat HIV

María José Buzón

Vall d’Hebron Institut de Recerca, España

HIV continues to be an incurable infectious disease. Despite the success of antiretroviral therapies in keeping the virus under control, from the initial stages of the infection it manages to persist in various tissues and cells of the body, known as viral reservoirs. The virus can remain alive in these reservoirs but latent, in other words without producing new copies.

Most of these reservoirs are found in lymphoid and mucous organs, as they contain large quantities of target cells. The immune system is incapable of recognising and eliminating HIV in these places, which is the main barrier to finding a definitive cure for the disease.

The goal of this project is to identify the local immunological mechanisms that contribute to its persistence in all of these tissues, which include the intestines, tonsils and cervix, in order to achieve new strategies that can restrict and even eliminate the presence of HIV in the organism.

• Enrique Martín-Gayo, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM)-CSIC, España

• Julia García, Institut de Recerca de la Sida ”la Caixa” – IRSICAIXA, España

Enhancing tissue-specific immune microenvironments for the cure of HIV (ETI-CureHIV)

699.135 €