Where's the Cure?
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A QUARTERLY JOURNAL ON HIV PREVENTION, TREATMENT AND POLITICS VOLUME 5, NO. 3 acHIeVe INSIDE Personal Perspective: CHANGING MY GENES 6 Where’s Being part of something as big as the search for the cure is a humbling experience. INCHING The TOWARD A VACCINE 9 The past two years Cure? have seen discover- ies that give hope that it may be possible to find an effective vaccine. THE FUTURE OF HIV PREVENTION 12 Three decades into the HIV epidemic, the A Look At Research number of new infections remains distress- ingly high. Across the U.S. HEPATITIS C: NEW DANGERS, that NIH granting procedures drastically NEW HOPES 16 by Stephen LeBlanc New information on slowed research and diverted money to transmission and a cure. university overhead costs, rather than to n 2009, Martin Delaney, a leading the search for a cure. Proponents esti- AIDS activist and the founder of Personal Perspective: mated a budget for the AIDS Cure Project Project Inform, co-authored an arti- MY FIGHT FOR A of $1.84 billion over five years. cle in Science calling for a new “HIV HEPATITIS C CURE 20 ICollaboratory” to focus on cure research. The Delaney Collaboratories The data on the new drug looked fabulous. The Collaboratory would be designed “to Nothing like the HIV Collaboratory or I thought, “I want this drug!” accelerate basic discovery and the clinical the AIDS Cure Project ever emerged, LOOKING BACK, translation of these discoveries.” Sadly, either in the amount of funding or in the LOOKING FOR- he died before the article was published. coordination of the research efforts. The WARD 24 The article echoed at least two decades NIH has, however, funded three teams People told me of calls from AIDS activists for the U.S. to devoted to AIDS cure research under the that an openly gay take a new approach to finding a cure for name “Martin Delaney Collaboratories”. HIV-positive man AIDS. In 1994, under pressure from ACT Each of the teams includes academic could accomplish UP, U.S. Representative Jerrold Nadler researchers with long experience in HIV little in the State Senate. introduced the AIDS Cure Project (HR research or clinical care, along with at 4370) in Congress. It would have changed least one industry partner, and will study EDITORIAL 27 the way AIDS research was conducted by three areas: First, basic science, such as bringing together a team of researchers understanding why HIV reservoirs per- Achieve is a joint publication of from diverse disciplines at a primary loca- sist in people even after decades of unde- ACRIA and GMHC. tion. Supporters claimed that the struc- tectable viral loads, why a small handful ture and bureaucracy of the NIH worked of people have undetectable viral loads against innovative, creative research, and continued on next page Where’s The Cure? continued from first page The defeatHIV Collaboratory (defeathiv.org) at the Fred Hutchinson many years after infection without tak- Cancer Research Center in Seattle acHIeVe ing HIV drugs, and whether persistent includes five projects to develop proteins inflammation plays a role in viral per- that attack HIV reservoirs. They will also EDITORS IN ChiEF sistence. Second, core technology com- study whether CD4 cells can be made Daniel Tietz ponents like developing effective models resistant to the virus. Its industry research Ace Robinson partner is Sangamo Biosciences, which holds the patent on zinc finger nucleases EDITOR (ZFNs), a type of “genetic scissors” that Mark Milano can precisely target genes and change CONTRIBUTING EDITOR them. DefeatHIV was awarded $20 mil- Robert Valadéz lion in funding by NIH over 5 years. ASSOCiaTE EDITORS Cellular therapies for HIV gener- Luis Scaccabarrozzi ally involve removing white blood cells Nathan Schaefer (animal and test tube) for testing differ- or stem cells from a patient, genetically ent therapies, finding ways to measure the modifying the cells, expanding them MEDICAL EDITOR (which can take a few weeks to a couple Jerome A. Ernst, MD viral reservoir, and developing treatment technologies such as stem cell expan- of months), and then infusing them PUBLICATIONS MANagER sion and genetic transformation. Finally, back into the patient. This is known as Mark Milano each team will move toward testing new an autologous transfusion or transplant. PUBLICATIONS ASSOCiaTE approaches in people. While the procedure is complex, the basic Laura Engle steps (other than the genetic modifica- For information on how to obtain bulk copies of Achieve, call The Robert Mapplethorpe 212-924-3934, ext. 134, email [email protected], or write to Clinical Research Program Achieve PROLASTIN-C Cenicriviroc (TBR-652) 230 West 38th St., 17th floor People with HIV aged 18 to 65 will People with HIV who are 18 and older New York, NY 10018. receive weekly infusions of the and who have not taken HIV meds will proteinase inhibitor Prolastin-C or a take either Cenicriviroc (an experi- Copyright © 2012 AIDS Community placebo for 8 to 16 weeks, to study its mental CCR5 inhibitor) or Sustiva Research Initiative of America and effect on CD4 counts. People who are for a year. Everyone will also take Gay Men’s Health Crisis. HIV negative will have lab tests done. Truvada. All rights reserved. Non- commercial reproduction is BMS-663068 Ibalizumab encouraged provided appropriate People with HIV who are 18 and People with HIV will receive infusions credit is given. Subscription lists older will take BMS-663068 (an of ibalizumab (a monoclonal antibody) to study its safety and effect on the are kept confidential. experimental HIV attachment inhibi- tor) or Reyataz for up to 96 weeks. immune system. Photos used in Achieve imply Everyone will also take Isentress nothing about the health status, and Viread. Selzentry sexual orientation, or life history People with HIV who are 18 and of the models. Crofelemer older and who have not taken HIV meds will take either Selzentry or Every “Personal Perspective” in People with HIV who are 18 and older and have diarrhea that has not Truvada for 22 months. Everyone will Achieve contains the views and responded adequately to treatment also take Prezista with Norvir. opinions of the attributed author will take crofelemer for up to a year. and does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of ACRIA or BI 201335 GMHC. People aged 18 to 70 who have hep- For more information on these trials, atitis C virus will take BI 201335 (an contact us at 212-924-3934, ext. 100. ISSN 1948-0687 (print) experimental HCV protease inhibitor) ISSN 2165-4883 (online) with peg-interferon and ribavirin for Compensation is available for some 12-48 weeks. studies. 2 VOL. 5, NO. 3 acHIeVe tion) are performed tens of thousands of preferable, but at this stage I think we chemotherapy will be enough to allow the time a year in people with leukemia and need to investigate all possibilities.” new cells to engraft. myeloma. The modified cells are either DefeatHIV is focusing on techniques Independently of defeatHIV, Sangamo mature CD4 cells or stem cells (young to address three problems common to all is conducting a Phase II clinical trial blood cells that have not yet matured into genetic modification therapies: genetic using autologous transplantation to a specific type of white blood cells). transformation efficiency, cell expan- remove the CCR5 receptor on CD4 cells. DefeatHIV is developing two types sion, and conditioning as mentioned Company spokesperson Elizabeth Wolffe of genetic modifications, which could above. Because all of these techniques are states, “Our goal as a company in this be used together, separately, or in com- new and involve risk, the team is putting research is to give people a therapy that bination with other genetic modifica- substantial effort into developing a non- will allow a patient to keep HIV under tion approaches. One is modeled on the human primate model to test the tech- control without drugs – in other words a “Berlin Patient”, Timothy Ray Brown. It niques for safety and effectiveness. functional cure.” Sangamo reports that uses autologous transfusion and ZFNs Genetic transformation efficiency the Phase II trials are progressing well to “knock out” the gene that makes the refers to the percent of cells that are actu- and expects to present preliminary data CCR5 receptor that HIV needs. ally transformed by the genetic agent or early in 2013. “You have to go where the science takes you. I strongly believe that if we are ever going get a cure we have to go into the cells and modify them.” The other approach is more experimen- tal and uses ZFN or other “genetic scissors” to target the HIV that has already integrated itself into the DNA of infected cells. While the possibility of actually chopping HIV out of infected cells is exciting, in one form this strategy requires introducing the genetic vector. Of all the cells exposed to the scissors directly into a patient’s body, which modification agent, only a portion of is less studied than the genetic modification them will be genetically modified. of cells outside of the body. This technique Cell expansion describes the ability to could also possibly be used in combination multiply the modified cells outside the body. with other genetic modifications to purge Since the total number of transformed cells The CARE Collaboratory at the HIV from infected cells removed from returned to the body will greatly affect their University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill patients before transplanting them back benefit, both high efficiency and expan- (delaneycare.org) is working to understand into the body. sion are needed to give a patient the greatest HIV latency more fully and develop treat- Due to the expense of these proce- number of modified cells.