HIV/AIDS

• First reported in 1981 in the United States, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS, has become a major worldwide epidemic.
  
  
• AIDS is a disabling or life-threatening illness caused by the human immunodeficiency virus, HIV.
  
  
• HIV seeks and destroys the body's disease-fighting white blood cells, weakening the immune system and making it very difficult for the body to fend off certain infections.
  
  
• HIV is primarily found in the blood, semen or vaginal fluid of an infected person and is transmitted in three major ways: through unprotected sexual contact with an infected person, through sharing needles or syringes with an infected person, and from mother to child during pregnancy, birth or breast feeding.
  
  
• A person who has HIV does not necessarily have AIDS. An AIDS patient is susceptible to life-threatening infections caused by microbes that usually do not cause illness in healthy people.

Home of the world’s largest HIV vaccine trials network—Hutchinson Center researchers lead the HIV Vaccine Trials Network, an international collaboration of scientists and educators searching for an effective and safe vaccine. The network is based in Seattle, which hosts HIV Vaccine Trial Units at leading research institutions globally, making it the world's largest clinical trials program devoted to the development and testing of preventive HIV vaccines. HVTN is conducting clinical trials throughout the world of more than a dozen vaccine candidates.

Making HIV vulnerable to immunotherapy — Research by Drs. Julie Overbaugh, Catherine Blish and colleagues could provide important clues for designing an effective HIV vaccine. The researchers found that two simple mutations in a certain strain of HIV-1 could render it vulnerable to attack by the body's immune system. These findings could form the foundation for new vaccines that could help the body to fight off HIV.

Improving the clinical trial process — Dr. Steven Self leads research on the design, conduct and analysis of HIV prevention trials, with a particular emphasis on HIV vaccines. Through development of new statistical study designs and analytic techniques, Self works to increase the efficiency of clinical trials that evaluate promising HIV vaccines. The goals of Self's methodological research include modeling the early events of HIV infection and the potential for vaccines to affect the infection’s course, optimizing vaccination regimens in early-phase trials, and analyzing how human and viral diversity affects a vaccine’s efficacy.

Statistical services for global HIV research — The Hutchinson Center is home to the Statistical Center for HIV/AIDS Research and Prevention (SCHARP). The center provides statistical collaboration to infectious-disease researchers worldwide and conducts a complementary program of statistical methodology and mathematical modeling research. SCHARP also collects, manages and analyzes data from clinical trials and epidemiological studies dedicated to the elimination of HIV/AIDS as a threat to human health.

Understanding the ancient origins of HIV vulnerability — Why are humans vulnerable to HIV today? The answer may lie in evidence of human immunity to a virus that infected chimpanzees 4 million years ago. Drs. Michael Emerman and Harmit Malik discovered that the presence of an ancient, rapidly evolving antiviral defense gene, called TRIM5α, may have protected humans against an ancient virus called Pan troglodytes endogenous retrovirus, or PtERV1. But the same gene that served humans so well millions of years ago doesn't appear to be good at defending against other retroviruses, such as HIV-1, that infect humans today, the scientists concluded. Learn more »

Curbing HIV spread in women — Research led by Drs. Florian Hladik and Julie McElrath could lead to new strategies to prevent HIV-1 transmission in women. Recognizing that most women worldwide contract HIV through sexual contact, the researchers used a unique model system to identify two different types of immune cells in the vagina that HIV-1 simultaneously enters. Their findings could inform ways to interfere with infection that occurs through vaginal tissues. Learn more »

Analyzing HIV risk and pregnancy — Neither pregnancy nor lactation placed women at increased risk of developing HIV-1, according to a large study of African women co-authored by Dr. Barbra Richardson and colleagues. Learn more »

Developing new approaches to vaccination — Dr. Ann Duerr leads novel research approaches and clinical trials designed to advance the search for a safe, effective vaccine against HIV. Duerr is examining whether vaccines can be more effective if they are administered through mucosal surfaces, such as the nose, mouth, instead of in the blood stream. Learn more »

Pioneering the search for an HIV cure – Hutchinson Center scientists are collaborating with industry to explore whether an HIV-infected person's own immune cells can be genetically modified to deny HIV entry into the body’s blood cells. The team, led by co-principal investigators Drs. Keith Jerome and Hans-Peter Kiem, will also work to develop tools to eradicate existing reservoirs of infection in the body. The $20 million study was announced by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in June of 2011 and has the goal of moving into clinical trials within five years. Learn more »

Immunotherapy and HIV infection treatment — Hutchinson Center researchers are pioneers in harnessing the body’s own immune system to treat cancer. Known as immunotherapy, the treatment has far fewer side effects than conventional drugs, radiation or surgery. Our researchers were the first to show that rare disease-fighting immune cells called T-cells can be extracted from patients, expanded to large quantities and infused back into patients to treat viral diseases. Today, they are evaluating the safety and effectiveness of this approach for HIV-positive patients.