UNC-Chapel Hill researchers and local industry scientists have received a $20 million contract allowing them to continue their work finding a cure for HIV.
Around 1.1 million people are living with HIV in the United States. Currently, those with the virus take antiretroviral therapy, which can suppress HIV to undetectable levels in blood. Unfortunately, the virus still persists in the body through latent, or hidden, infected cells. For several years, scientists have been trying to bring latent HIV cells out of dormancy so they can become visible to the immune system.
David Margolis, M.D., Richard Dunham, Ph.D., and all of the scientists working at the UNC HIV Cure Center are working to tackle this issue.
Margolis is a distinguished UNC School of Medicine professor, and the director of the HIV Cure Center, at UNC-Chapel Hill and Dunham is director of HIV Cure for ViiV Healthcare.
Together, ViiV Healthcare and scientists at UNC-Chapel Hill make up Qura Therapeutics . This partnership, founded five years ago, aims to provide financial and material support to the UNC HIV Cure Center.
Through extensive research, this partnership has introduced a new compound that “activates” these infected HIV cells and in return pushes the virus out of its hiding place – to be seen and eliminated by the immune system.
To continue this groundbreaking research, Qura Therapeutics requires funding. On Monday, March 9, ViiV and Carolina announced that they have signed a second five-year $20 million contract to continue their research to find a cure.
Carolina's work to find a cure for HIV is getting a boost from another $20 million partnership with @ViiVHC. Coupling the strengths of industry science and our world-class academic research has #UNC's HIV Cure Center closer than ever to achieving its goal https://t.co/6Qc2Chuhmz
— UNC-Chapel Hill (@UNC) March 9, 2020
Read more about Qura Therapeutics’ research in our past story here.
(Lead photo courtesy of Johnny Andrews/UNC-Chapel Hill)
