A new round of grants totaling nearly $2.4 million will support seven teams of cure research scientists in the United States and worldwide, according to a statement by amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, which awarded the grants through its Research Consortium on HIV Eradication (ARCHE) program.

The principal investigators heading these teams are: Ramesh Akkina, PhD, at Colorado State University in Fort Collins; Nicholas Chomont, PhD, at the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute in Port St. Lucie, Florida; Scott Kitchen, PhD, at the University of California, Los Angeles; Javier Martinez-Picado, PhD, at IrsiCaixa in Badalona, Spain; Vanderson Rocha, MD, PhD, at the National Health Service Blood and Transplant, Cord Blood Banks, in Oxford, England; Robert Siciliano, MD, PhD, at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland; and Guido Silvestri, MD, at Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

Akkina will use humanized mice to unmask the latent HIV reservoir. Chomont will study HIV persistence in T cell subsets during antiretroviral treatment. Kitchen will program stem cells to eradicate HIV. Martinez-Picado seeks to replicate the experience of the Berlin patient, who was cured of HIV using transplants of stem cells with the CCR5 delta-32 mutation to treat his leukemia. Rocha will help identify the stem cell donors with the greatest CCR5 potential. Both Siciliano and Silvestri will conduct studies that may shed light on the need for changes to current HIV cure efforts.

To read the statement, click here.