Engineering T cells to Provide Durable Control of HIV-1 Replication

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Despite anti-retroviral therapies (ART), HIV-1 continues to cause a considerable medical and economic burden, and there continues to be a pressing need for an HIV-1 cure. The goal of this Program is to generate an immune system that can resist HIV-1 infection, control viral replication below the limit of detection and persist at high functional competency in the absence of ART. We are currently performing a Phase I clinical trial that is infusing 10 billion T cells that have been made resistant to HIV infection and can recognize HIV infected via a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) into HIV infected individuals. A major goal of this consortium to develop strategies that improve the effector function, trafficking and persistence of these T cells. The elements of our proposal are: 1) Engineering HIV-specific T cells that have improved function and persistence (Project 1, John Wherry). This project will use well-characterized animal models to search for factors or pathways that augment T cell function and persistence to chronic infection. 2) Modeling HIV CAR T cell trafficking and persistence in Non-Human Primates (Project 2, Hans-Peter Kiem, Chris Peterson and Mike Betts). This project seeks to understand how CAR T cells traffic throughout the body and explores ways to alter this trafficking to favor HIV clearance. Additionally, the ability of HIV CAR T cells to become tissue resident memory T cells is explored. 3) Modeling combination immunotherapy for HIV Cure in a mouse models (Project 3, Jim Riley and Todd Allen). Here, we will explore how a wide array of immunotherapy approaches synergize to promote T cell control of HIV replication.4) Clinical trials engine to develop an HIV Cure study to test engineered T cells (Project 4, Usman Azam, Pablo Tebas and Jim Hoxie). This industry led project will develop an improved process to manufacture engineered T cells from HIV infected individuals and then take the most promising approaches developed by Projects 1-3 to conduct a Phase I clinical trial. The Program is supported by 2 Cores: Core A is the administrative Core (PI, Jim Riley); Core B is the Genome Engineering Core (PI, Rick Bushman). In addition, our Program takes advantage of existing School of Medicine and CFAR Cores to promote cost sharing and avoid duplication of resources.