OHSU scientist awarded $25 million grant to further HIV vaccine research
Oregon Health & Science University researchers have received a $25 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to advance work on a promising vaccine candidate that may someday prevent or cure infection with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
(Media-Newswire.com) - Oregon Health & Science University researchers have received a $25 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to advance work on a promising vaccine candidate that may someday prevent or cure infection with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
The grant — awarded to a team of scientists at OHSU's Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute led by Louis Picker, M.D. — is among the largest philanthropic grants OHSU has ever received.
“We are incredibly grateful for the Gates Foundation’s support,” said OHSU President Joe Robertson, M.D., M.B.A. “This is great news for OHSU but even better news for the fight against HIV and AIDS. Dr. Picker’s research is at the leading edge of a process that might eliminate HIV from humans. The support of the Gates Foundation adds momentum to this vitally important work.”
"I am humbled, yet incredibly excited by the confidence the Gates Foundation is showing in our work," said Picker, who is associate director of the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute and director of its vaccine development program. "This generous level of support is a game-changer in how we can make real progress to defeat HIV and AIDS.”
Last year, more than 35 million people throughout the world were living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, according to the World Health Organization. While the annual number of new HIV infections has declined in recent years, an estimated 2.1 million people were newly infected with the virus last year.
And while antiretroviral drug therapy has also steadily decreased the number of AIDS-related deaths in recent years, an estimated 1.5 million people still died from AIDS last year, according to the WHO.
The work of Picker and his colleagues focuses on a possible vaccine that shows promise in not only preventing the HIV virus from establishing infection in exposed, uninfected individuals, but also holds the hope of eliminating the virus from people who are already infected.
Picker and his colleagues published research in the journal Nature last year that detailed how their vaccine candidate protected monkeys given the simian immunodeficiency virus — or SIV, the non-human primate version of HIV. The vaccine stopped the infection from spreading and then cleared it from the bodies of half of the monkeys it was tested on.
"In effect, we helped better arm the hunters in the body to chase down and kill an elusive viral enemy," Picker said. "And we're quite confident that this vaccine approach can work exactly the same way against HIV in humans."
The National Institutes of Health cited Picker's research among its "promising medical advances" of 2013.
The Picker team's approach involves the use of cytomegalovirus, or CMV, a virus that is already carried by most humans and is generally harmless. The researchers discovered, as they reported in Nature, that engineering CMV to express SIV proteins had a unique effect. This modified version of CMV was able to generate and indefinitely maintain so-called "effector memory" T cells that target SIV and are capable of searching out and destroying SIV-infected cells.
T cells are a key component of the body's immune system, which fights off disease. But HIV and SIV are able to evade T cells elicited by conventional vaccines or SIV/HIV itself. The SIV-specific T cells elicited by the modified CMV vaccine were different. These T cells were able to arrest a highly pathogenic SIV very early during the course of infection in 50 percent of monkeys, and over time were able to eliminate all traces of SIV from the monkey’s bodies.
The Gates Foundation had already supported Picker's team, which includes VGTI scientists Scott Hansen, Ph.D., Klaus Frueh, Ph.D., Jay Nelson, Ph.D., Patrizia Caposio, Ph.D., Dan Streblow, Ph.D., Victor DeFilippis. Ph.D., and Michael Axthelm, DVM, Ph.D., with an $8 million grant in January 2012. That, along with NIH research funding, helped the lab make significant progress on its vaccine work.
The new grant will allow the Picker team to test the safety of a prototype human version of the vaccine in a phase I clinical trial in humans. It will also help the team develop an optimized version of the vaccine suitable for larger scale efficacy testing. Although the current grant will be primarily focused on a preventative vaccine for HIV/AIDS, the same technology will be applicable to a therapeutic vaccine designed to treat already HIV-infected individuals on antiretroviral therapy with the goal of curing these individuals.
"We're still probably eight to 10 years away from proving this vaccine works to prevent or cure HIV infection in humans," Picker said. "But this grant will allow us to transition from nonhuman primate models to clinical testing, a critical step in vaccine development. This important work could not happen without this remarkable investment from the Gates Foundation. I believe their grant will help us kill this disease for good."
ABOUT THE VACCINE AND GENE THERAPY INSTITUTE Located on the West Campus of OHSU, the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute was established in March 2001. The overall mission of the VGTI is to respond to the increasingly serious infectious disease threats facing the people of Oregon, the United States and the world as a whole, including AIDS, chronic viral infection-associated diseases, newly emerging viral diseases, and infectious diseases of the elderly. Vaccine development and the development of novel immune and gene therapeutic approaches to these diseases are the major priorities of the faculty.
About OHSU Oregon Health & Science University is a nationally prominent research university and Oregon’s only public academic health center. It serves patients throughout the region with a Level 1 trauma center and nationally recognized Doernbecher Children’s Hospital. OHSU operates dental, medical, nursing and pharmacy schools that rank high both in research funding and in meeting the university’s social mission. OHSU’s Knight Cancer Institute helped pioneer personalized medicine through a discovery that identified how to shut down cells that enable cancer to grow without harming healthy ones. OHSU Brain Institute scientists are nationally recognized for discoveries that have led to a better understanding of Alzheimer’s disease and new treatments for Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis and stroke. OHSU’s Casey Eye Institute is a global leader in ophthalmic imaging, and in clinical trials related to eye disease.
In the interest of ensuring the integrity of our research and as part of our commitment to public transparency, OHSU actively regulates, tracks and manages relationships that our researchers may hold with entities outside of OHSU. In regards to this research project, CMV vector technology is being commercialized by TomegaVax, Inc., a company in which both OHSU and Dr. Picker have a significant financial interest.
Review details of OHSU's conflict of interest program to find out more about how we manage these business relationships.
Media Contact Todd Murphy 503-494-8231
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This story was released on 2014-09-11. Please make sure to visit the official company or organization web site to learn more about the original release date. See our disclaimer for additional information.