UCLA receives nearly $14 million from NIH to investigate gene therapy to combat HIV

UCLA researchers and colleagues have received a $13.65 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to investigate and further develop an immunotherapy known as CAR T, which uses genetically modified stem cells to target and destroy HIV.The five-year grant, part of an NIH effort to develop gene-engineering technologies to cure HIV/AIDS, will fund a collaboration among UCLA; CSL-Behring, a biotechnology company in the United States and Australia; and the University of Washington –Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.Scott Kitchen, an associate professor of medicine in the division of hematology and oncology, and Irvin Chen, director of theUCLA AIDS Institute at theDavid Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA,are leading the effort. The project will build on their previous research using CAR T therapy to combat the virus, which is constantly mutating and difficult to beat.“The overarching goal of our proposed studies is to identify a new gene therapy strategy to safely and effectively modify a patient’s own stem cells to resist HIV infection and simultaneously enhance their ability to recognize and destroy infected cells in the body in hopes of curing HIV infec tion,” said Kitchen, who also directs the humanized mouse core laboratory for UCLA’sCenter for AIDS Research andJonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.  “It is a huge boost to our efforts at UCLA and elsewhere to find a creative strategy to defeat HIV.”The only known cure of an HIV-infected person was...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news