The 2011 CROI just wrapped up in Boston, and abstracts and webcasts of all sessions – including poster discussions – are now available on the conference website. Among the most publicized presentations were two describing preliminary results of a gene therapy approach developed by Sangamo Biosciences; the first was given by Jay Lalezari and the webcast can be found at the start of the Monday oral abstract session entitled “HIV: Innovative Therapeutic Approaches, ART, and Drug Resistance.” The second was by Carl June on Wednesday in the symposium “Obstacles to a Cure.” The latter session also includes a presentation by Paula Cannon on plans to use the Sangamo technology to modify stem cells, potentially circumventing the need to use CD4 T cell extraction and reinfusion (this idea is earlier in development and not yet in human trials).
Other major topics at the meeting included updates from the iPrEx pre-exposure prophylaxis trial and encouraging data from long term follow up of a study in Uganda assessing the efficacy of circumcision for HIV prevention. Excellent coverage of these and other CROI 2011 presentations can be found on sites such as AIDSMap, AIDSMeds, The Body, HIVandHepatitis.com and NATAP.
The links below are to some studies that caught my attention.
Paper #: 158
Authors and Affiliations: Damien Soghoian*1, S Ranasinghe1, S Cutler1, K Axten1, H Jessen2, B Walker1, and H Streeck1
1Ragon Inst of MGH, MIT, and Harvard, Boston, MA, US and 2Jessen-Jessen-Stein, Berlin, Germany
Paper #: 331
Authors and Affiliations: Jeffrey Currier*1, M de Souza1, S Ratto-Kim1, G Kijak1, C Andrews1, S Rerks-Ngerm2, M Robb1, N Michael1, M Marovich1, and J Kim1
1US Military HIV Res Prgm, Rockville, MD and 2Ministry of Publ Hlth, Nonthaburi, Thailand
- these two papers suggest that CD4 T cells with the capacity to kill virus-infected cells may be an important component of an effective immune response against HIV.
Paper #: 991
Authors and Affiliations: Lindi Roberts*1, J-A Passmore1,2, C Williamson1,3, F Little1, V Naranbhai3, S Sibeko3, G Walzl4, Q Abdool Karim3,5, and S Abdool Karim3,5
1Univ of Cape Town, South Africa; 2Natl Hlth Lab Svc, Cape Town, South Africa; 3Ctr for the AIDS Prgm of Res in South Africa, Durban; 4Stellenbosch Univ, Cape Town, South Africa; and 5Columbia Univ, New York, NY, US
- I’ve written before on the blog about the potential role of genital tract immune activation in increasing susceptibility to HIV infection, and this study of women participating in the CAPRISA 004 tenofovir gel trial adds to the evidence that this is a crucially important factor driving transmission risk.
Paper #: 349
Title: Immune Correlates of Unusual Control of Viral Replication after Cessation of HAART
Authors and Affiliations: Ellen Van Gulck*, L Heyndrickx, C Merlin, S Coppens, D Atkinson, E Florence, A Buvé, and G Vanham
Inst of Tropical Med, Antwerp, Belgium
- Over the years, many studies involving ART interruption have been presented and published, and occasionally they have described rare individuals who experience viral rebound but then control HIV to undetectable levels for some time without restarting treatment. This study describes four such cases, and for the first time ascribes them a name: “secondary controllers” (SC). Hopefully this bestowing of an acronym will lead to a more systematic evaluation of the phenomenon, as happened with elite controllers (the name given to individuals who control HIV to undetectable levels without ever receiving ART).
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