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Annual Report 2017 Amfar,The Foundation for AIDS Research Cover Photo: a Dendritic Cell Interacting with a T Cell © Meletios Verras | Dreamstime.Com Awards Contents Annual Report 2017 amfAR,The Foundation for AIDS Research Cover photo: A dendritic cell interacting with a T cell © Meletios Verras | Dreamstime.com Awards Contents amfAR in 2017 01 Grants, Fellowships, and Awards 07 Research Grants, Fellowships, and Awards TREAT Asia Grants and Awards GMT Initiative Awards Public Policy Awards Financial Highlights 13 Leadership and Advisory Committees 15 Board of Trustees Scientific Advisory Committee Program Advisory Council Management Group amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, is dedicated to ending the global AIDS epidemic through innovative research. HIGHLIGHTS amfAR CEO Kevin Robert Frost (right) moderates a panel discussion at the amfAR HIV Cure Summit. Research u ARCHE, the amfAR Research Consortium on HIV Eradication, was launched in 2010. It supports collaborative teams of Countdown to a Cure for AIDS scientists in the U.S. and around the world working on a range of HIV cure strategies. In 2015, amfAR announced a $100 million investment strategy to support its Countdown to a Cure for AIDS initiative, which is aimed u The Opportunity Fund is a funding mechanism that enables at developing the scientific basis for a cure by 2020. The strategy amfAR to respond quickly to emerging and unforeseen research represents an unprecedented expansion of amfAR’s grant making opportunities. and is designed to provide support to any scientist or team of investigators for any research idea with the potential to advance the search for a cure, at any stage of its development. HIV Cure Summit amfAR has since awarded 58 Countdown grants totaling more than In December 2016, amfAR held its third annual HIV Cure Summit $41 million to support research conducted by 222 scientists working at UCSF. Leading amfAR-funded cure researchers detailed their at 74 institutions in 10 countries. Structured to provide sustained progress and discussed the scientific challenges that continue to support for a wide range of studies that advance both emerging and stand in the way of a cure. Drs. Peter Hunt, Warner Greene, Satish established ideas, the strategy comprises the following components: Pillai, and Steve Deeks reported on their efforts to pinpoint and measure the size of latent HIV u The amfAR Institute for HIV Cure Research, established in reservoirs; shock the virus 2016 with a $20 million grant over five years to the University of out of hiding so it can be California, San Francisco (UCSF), is the cornerstone of amfAR’s killed; and test interventions cure research efforts. developed by Institute u Innovation Grants, two-year awards of up to $200,000 each, researchers in clinical trials. enable researchers to test innovative ideas supported by limited preliminary data. Innovation Grants u Impact Grants of up to $2 million each over four years support In July 2017, amfAR awarded the in-depth development of concepts already underpinned by $1.2 million in Innovation preliminary data showing genuine potential for achieving a cure. grants to six researchers exploring mechanisms of u Investment Grants are aimed at recruiting the experience and HIV persistence and the expertise of scientists from outside the field of HIV. These $1 potential for viral eradication. million grants are awarded over a four-year period. Grantees Among the grantees were Dr. may have expertise in fields such as cancer, neuroscience, or amfAR grantee Dr. Benjamin Burwitz of Joshua Schiffer, from Fred inflammatory disease that can directly inform efforts to cure HIV. Oregon Health and Science University Hutchinson Cancer Research 1 Center in Seattle, who is testing a drug normally used to prevent Mathilde Krim Fellowships organ transplant rejection for its potential to eliminate the reservoir completely; Drs. Andrew Henderson, from Boston University School In October 2016, amfAR announced the recipients of the Mathilde of Medicine, and Fabio Romerio, from the University of Maryland in Krim Fellowships in Basic Biomedical Research, which support Baltimore, who are exploring a cure strategy known as “block and bright young scientists seeking innovative solutions to HIV/AIDS. lock,” which aims to silence HIV and prevent its re-emergence when The six Krim Fellows were each awarded approximately $150,000 therapy is stopped; and Dr. Benjamin Burwitz, from Oregon Health over two years. and Science University in Portland, who plans to generate a monkey model lacking the protein CCR5, the primary means by which most Published Research types of HIV infect cells. Research studies make the greatest impact on the HIV field and on the broader scientific community when they are published in Investment Grants scientific journals. In FY2017, 52 scientific publications resulted from In February 2017, amfAR announced a new round of Investment amfAR-funded research. grants totaling $1.2 million to support six research projects that enlist the help of bioengineers to eradicate the main barrier to a Think Tanks cure: latent HIV reservoirs. One pair of researchers—Dr. Timothy Henrich, of UCSF and the amfAR Institute for HIV Cure Research, In October 2016, amfAR hosted a think tank in Lisbon, Portugal, and bioengineer Dr. Utkan Demirci from Stanford—aim to apply titled, “Progress Report: Research toward a Cure for AIDS in magnetic levitation of single cells to identify and characterize HIV the context of IciStem.” IciStem is a consortium of 17 European reservoirs. Another team—Drs. Hui Zhang and Weiming Yang of researchers that aims to replicate the case of “the Berlin patient,” Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore—is using mass spectrometry who remains the only person known to have been cured of HIV. It to identify molecules on the surface of cells that differentiate latent was created and is funded by amfAR through its Countdown to a reservoirs from uninfected cells. And a third—Drs. Priti Kumar and Cure for AIDS initiative. Mark Saltzman of Yale University in New Haven, CT—is exploring a amfAR hosted another think tank in April 2017 in Palo Alto, CA, novel gene-editing approach using a cell’s machinery to eliminate on strategies to identify latently infected cells. The researchers HIV reservoirs. discussed finding a biomarker for these cells as an alternative approach to “shock and kill.” One of the biggest challenges with the “shock-and-kill” strategy is that current drug regimens do not reawaken all of the infected cells. HIV Research Summit in Brazil In March 2017, amfAR hosted an HIV research summit at the University of São Paulo, bringing together 250 community members, medical students, healthcare professionals, and representatives from 10 São Paulo-based nongovernmental organizations. The summit was held in conjunction with the Advanced Course on HIV Pathogenesis at the university’s School of Medicine. TREAT Asia amfAR grantee Dr. Weiming Yang of Johns Hopkins University amfAR’s TREAT Asia (Therapeutics Research, Education, and AIDS Training in Asia) program is a network of hospitals, clinics, and ARCHE (amfAR Research Consortium research institutions working with civil society to ensure the safe and on HIV Eradication) effective delivery of treatments for HIV and its co-infections to adults In July 2017, amfAR awarded more than $2.3 million in ARCHE and children across the Asia-Pacific through research, education, grants to seven teams of researchers (see page 7) working on gene and advocacy of evidence-based HIV-related policies. The TREAT therapy-based approaches to curing HIV. The researchers are Asia Network encompasses 21 adult and 20 pediatric sites pursuing projects such as: designing and refining vectors that can throughout the region, which collaborate on a variety of projects. accurately target HIV reservoir cells; using CAR T cells, which have TREAT Asia scientists produced a record 35 publications in peer- shown remarkable promise in curing cancer, to kill HIV-infected reviewed medical journals in 2017. cells; and using viral and non-viral delivery mechanisms to deliver genetic scissors to cut the virus out of human DNA. 2 Gathering Critical Information region and developing trainings for pediatric HIV providers. TREAT Asia hosted the first such training in June 2017 in Bangkok TREAT Asia pioneered the region’s first adult observational to help clinicians better diagnose and manage mental health database for HIV/AIDS—the TREAT Asia HIV Observational disorders in adolescents living with HIV. The workshop included Database (TAHOD)—which now includes anonymous data from more than 30 clinical and mental health professionals who work approximately 9,200 patients at 21 clinical sites in 12 countries. The with HIV-positive youth in Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, and information gathered in the database informs the development of Malaysia. Participants reviewed the epidemiology of adolescent more effective research and treatment programs and helps define mental health issues and discussed mental health needs among treatment standards specific to HIV/AIDS in Asia. The TAHOD youth living with HIV, psychopharmacology, and suicide risk Low-Intensity Transfer (TAHOD-LITE) database, an extension of assessment tools. TAHOD, contains data from over 37,000 HIV-positive patients across 10 TREAT Asia network sites. It aims to increase the scope of adult data collection by gathering a subset of core variables from Empowering Youth Advocates the entire cohort of HIV-infected patients who have sought care at The first class of TREAT Asia’s Youth ACATA—Asia Community selected TAHOD sites. for AIDS Treatment and Advocacy—held its final workshop in June 2017 in Bangkok, where eight young people living with HIV from A Global Collaboration Cambodia, Indonesia, and Thailand graduated from the two-year leadership training program. Launched in 2015 with support from Since 2006, TREAT Asia has managed the Asia-Pacific section of ViiV Healthcare’s Positive Action for Adolescents program, Youth the International epidemiology Databases to Evaluate AIDS (IeDEA), ACATA aims to educate participants about HIV and antiretroviral a global collaboration established by the U.S. National Institute of therapy and connect them to other HIV-positive youth in the region.
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