HIV – We’ve Never Been Closer to a Cure

29 years ago, Dr. Luis Montaner started an HIV cure research program at The Wistar Institute. Today, he is the newly minted founding director of Wistar’s HIV Cure and Viral Diseases Center. His innovative work spans the globe, across research groups in Philadelphia and throughout the U.S., to South Africa, Vietnam, and beyond. His collaborators include top advocacy groups & activists, community members, pharmaceutical & biotech industry leaders; academic scientists; and government officials all united toward the goal of a cure to HIV.

Tell us about your research and the need for a center for HIV cure research.

Our HIV cure research focuses on the fundamental biomedical science & mechanics of HIV and understanding the context of this disease in relation to our greater society. I want to know: How can we manipulate the immune system to rid the body of HIV? But also, how do we develop scientific answers that can also help address the health care barriers & stigma of living with this incurable disease? Curing HIV will result in a great many benefits to the individual but also to the greater society.

The new HIV Cure and Viral Diseases Center is a natural extension of the momentum building now to find a cure for HIV. Wistar’s $24 million investment in the Center comes at a time of increased global enthusiasm to develop an HIV cure — so, this Center is the right investment at the right time.

Where is HIV research today?

Right now, we can manage the virus with antiretroviral drugs, also referred to as “ART,” or antiretroviral therapy. But to achieve an HIV cure, we want to eradicate and remove HIV from the body. When we talk about an HIV cure, we talk about living without antiretrovirals. These drugs have saved lives, but they are taken throughout one’s lifetime and treatments come with the risk of complications upon long-term use.

Why a cure?

We want to develop an HIV cure strategy that works and then make sure it is accessible around the world, because the value of an HIV cure extends beyond HIV itself. HIV is a challenge because of its capacity to mutate — the immune system starts to catch on to the threat, but then the virus changes itself to evade our natural defenses, ensuring its persistence. In addition, once a patient starts ART, the virus can persist without replication by hiding in immune cells over time — ready to come out again and flare up if ART stops.

Accessibility to drugs and therapies is also a big problem. A lifelong drug regimen costs money, living with HIV can also raise stigma and discrimination, and we’ve seen that access to therapy can be worse in developing countries — where most HIV cases in the world happen. Health disparities and access to care & therapies are critical components we would still need to address in our health systems in the United States and globally once we find a strategy to cure HIV.

It is also important to stress that HIV research benefits our understanding of other diseases and vice versa. Hepatitis C treatment and eradication, as well as the RNA COVID vaccine, were greatly aided by the work done in HIV research on protease inhibitors and HIV vaccines, respectively. CAR T-cell therapy for cancers, which is available to patients today, was also greatly accelerated by the preclinical work on using CAR T-cells against HIV. And in turn, Wistar’s research on Epstein-Barr virus and other diseases has helped us to advance our HIV cure research. Anything that we can discover that would cure HIV will carry important lessons for all viral research.

How does the new HIV Cure and Viral Diseases Center distinguish itself in this area?

The HIV Cure and Viral Diseases Center supercharges our research efforts to get an HIV cure to persons living with HIV as we advocate strongly for awareness and change. Our network has a record of success sharing information with groups that otherwise may not have access. We provide seminars to persons living with HIV within our community, and we have community advisory boards that bring feedback from the community into research and clinical processes. We want to end stigma and discrimination with an HIV cure so that persons living with HIV can be permanently free of the virus.

To find a cure you need science — but you also need commitment and investment. The new Center now gathers all three under one roof with a common mission: realizing an HIV cure within our lifetime.