Duke receives federal funding for HIV vaccine research

Duke receives federal funding for HIV vaccine research

The Duke Human Vaccine Institute (DHVI) and the Department of Surgery at Duke University School of Medicine received an HIV vaccine research grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases that, if fully funded, could total $25.9 million over five years.

The funding supports a multi-agency initiative called The Consortium for Innovative HIV/AIDS Vaccine and Cure Research, which focuses on two scientific priorities: identifying the components and protective mechanisms of preventive vaccines; and the use of the newly identified preventative vaccines along with other immunotherapies to advance potential treatments and/or cures.

The grant's principal investigators are Guido Ferrari, M.D., professor in the Department of Surgery and research professor in the Department of Genetics and Microbiology, and Wilton Williams, Ph.D., associate professor in the departments of Surgery and Medicine and assistant professor in the Department of Immunology at Duke University School of Medicine.

Researchers will lead work that builds on ongoing HIV vaccine development research at DHVI and expands investigations of vaccination strategies, including innovative mRNA approaches that elicit protective immune responses in non-human primate models.

This grant is synergistic with all activities at Duke, particularly the Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology and Immunogen Discovery (CHAVI-ID) initiative to develop an HIV vaccine. We are excited about the wonderful science being done under this fellowship. It expands the capacity of Duke, UNC and others collaborating in this effort to advance both vaccines and potential cures.”

Barton Haynes, Director of the DHVI

By combining vaccination approaches and healing efforts, innovative collaborations in both directions should be stimulated. Studies in non-human primates will examine how effective HIV/AIDS vaccines are at protecting against primary and systemic infections.

Vaccines and other immune interventions are also used as healing strategies, with the aim of eliminating any infections in the cells. Although progress has been made in strengthening cellular and antibody immunity, it remains unclear whether the enhanced immune response can prevent reinfection after discontinuation of antiretroviral treatments. With the newly funded scholarship, the researchers hope to answer these and other questions.

“This grant will allow us to do something that current vaccine research is not funded for – research vaccines with the goal of a cure,” Williams said. “Right now it’s either prevention or cure, and we want to do a combination of those things.”

Ferrari said vaccine research has advanced enough that researchers can now begin using potential components of vaccines as well as new technologies such as mRNA vaccine design to explore ways to eradicate HIV from infected cells.

“The beauty of mRNA is its ability to adapt quickly and we can produce it in time to combat new variants, which is important for HIV,” Ferrari said. “We will now focus on how we can use current scientific knowledge to eradicate infections.”

“The science underlying this program is broadly applicable, ranging from the immediate goals of eliminating HIV disease to more general use of the immune system to prevent emerging infectious diseases, fight cancer, and advance our understanding of autoimmunity and transplant biology,” said Allan D. Kirk, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Department of Surgery.

“Our department sees the potential for fundamental investments like this to deliver transformative approaches to care that are not traditionally the purview of a surgical department,” Kirk said. "Dr. Williams and Ferrari are important members of our translational science community."

In addition to Williams and Ferrari, Priyamvada Acharya, Mihai Azoitei, Derek Cain, Thomas Denny, Robert J. Edwards, Barton Haynes, David Montefiori, Justin Pollara, Keith Reeves, Wes Rountree, Kevin Saunders, Shaunna Shen and Rachel are employees at Duke Spreng, Georgia Tomaras, Kevin Wiehe, Kelly Cuttle and Cynthia Nagle.

Study partners include Katharine Barr, Michael Betts, Beatrice Hahn, George Shaw and Drew Weissman of the University of Pennsylvania; Richard Dunham and David Margolis of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Sampa Santra at Harvard University; Andrew McMichael, Persephone Borrow and Geraldine Gillespie at Oxford University; Bette Korber and Kshitij Wagh at Los Alamos National Laboratory; and Mark Lewis from BIOQUAL.

Source:

Duke University School of Medicine

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