HIV gene therapy

The most meaningful HIV cure will be not only safe and effective but also widely accessible for the 39 million people infected worldwide, no matter who they are or where they live.

Dr. Hans-Peter Kiem, professor (Hematology and Oncology) is pursuing such a cure in the form of in vivo gene therapy that confers HIV resistance to a specific subset of a patient’s hematopoietic stem cells, or HSCs, the building blocks of our blood and immune systems. He was awarded $480,000 by amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, to support the next stage of his work.

“This grant gets us one step closer to in vivo gene therapy for HIV as well as sickle cell disease and other genetic diseases," said Kiem, who holds the Stephanus Family Endowed Chair for Cell and Gene Therapy. He is also deputy director of the Translational Science and Therapeutics Division. "I think this will have very wide implications for the field.”