Recent Progress in HIV/AIDS Prevention & Cure.

Kshitij Wagh,

LANL

With almost 35 million infected people and a million deaths each year, HIV/AIDS has one of the highest burdens on human health. I will first describe the emergence and spread of the HIV, and the extensive diversity of contemporary circulating strains. Next, I will explain the lifecycle of the virus and the modes of action of the various therapies that have been tried to date. Finally, I will talk about the development of a new class of anti-HIV drugs - antibodies isolated from HIV-infected individuals.

Several recent studies have isolated exceptional antibodies from HIV-infected individuals that can potently neutralize most circulating HIV strains. These in-depth studies have provided invaluable insights for design of novel vaccine strategies. However, a more direct application of such exceptional antibodies is to deliver them as drugs. The advantage of such antibodies over other anti-HIV drugs is that they engage with the host immune system in the killing of HIV infected cells, thus raising the hopes of a cure. I will detail our biophysical modeling work that enables prediction of optimal combinations of antibodies for successful prevention and cure of HIV infections. This talk will be tailored to a general, non-biology audience.