Cure & Immunotherapy
The IMPAACT Cure & Immunotherapy Scientific Committee aims to evaluate the potential for ART-free HIV remission through therapeutic interventions aimed at prevention, clearance, and post-treatment control of HIV reservoirs in infants, children, and adolescents with HIV and leverage expertise for evaluation of vaccines for HIV and related/co-occurring conditions in these populations.
Priorities include evaluation of:
- Evaluate whether very early therapy with more potent ART, in combination with bNAbs, limits HIV reservoir establishment in infants and leads to ART-free remission
- Evaluate immune-based therapies, including therapeutic HIV vaccines and bNAbs, in children and adolescents with HIV
- Examine combined initial therapy with ARVs plus immunotherapies, with and without LRAs, in adolescents and young adults to rapidly induce virologic control and potentiate elicitation of a “vaccinal effect” mediated through antigen-antibody immune complexes
- Examine the role of the CNS and T follicular helper CD4+ T cells as sanctuary sites following perinatal HIV infection and develop studies to explore elimination of HIV reservoirs within these anatomic locations
- Identify optimal virologic and immunological biomarkers to detect and quantify HIV reservoirs, and predictors of reservoir size and time to viremic rebound
Learn more about the current portfolio and prior research from the Cure Scientific Committee.
Committee Contacts
Chair: Deborah Persaud
Vice-Chair: Betsy McFarland
Operations Center: Anne Coletti and Charlotte Perlowski
Committee Members
- Ellen Chadwick
- Tariro Chawana
- Mark Cotton
- Aditya Gaur
- Nilu Goonetilleke
- Adeodata Kekitiinwa
- Alka Khaitan
- Dara Lehman
- Katherine Luzuriaga
- Allen Matubu
- Savita Pahwa
- Adriana Weinberg