Philadelphia-led consortium is selected to tailor HIV curative strategies to participant<\/p>\n
Philadelphia, PA, Aug. 19, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Wistar Institute<\/a> announces the National Institutes of Health (NIH) granted a five-year, $17 million research award to launch iCure Consortium<\/a> to develop individualized \u201ccure regimens\u201d for HIV. The Wistar-led, iCure Consortium\u2019s objective is to advance strategies to cure HIV through tailored personalized medicine.<\/p>\n \u201cToday 38 million people still live with HIV worldwide, and 1.3 million contract the virus each year,\u201d said Luis J. Montaner, D.V.M., D.Phil.<\/a>, iCure principal investigator, executive vice president of The Wistar Institute and director of Wistar’s HIV Cure and Viral Diseases Center<\/a>. \u201cFor the first time, this grant brings our best team together working towards a cure tailored to each participant by pairing the latest in neutralizing antibody and cell-therapy breakthroughs against the unique, person-specific features of HIV.\u201d<\/p>\n iCure Consortium will test a six-part, individually-tailored therapy designed to wipe out the persistent viral reservoir that remains after antiretroviral therapy in an effort to deliver durable, drug-free remission. The project combines six advanced tactics\u2014neutralizing antibodies, mRNA therapy, viral binders, engineered CAR-T and \u201cNatural Killer\u201d (NK) cells, and precision latency \u201cwake-up\u201d drugs\u2014all designed against each patient\u2019s unique virus.<\/p>\n \u201cEnding HIV demands more than management\u2014it demands eradication,\u201d said Drew Weissman, M.D., Ph.D., iCure co\u2011principal investigator, 2023 Nobel Laureate and Roberts Family Professor in Vaccine Research at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. \u201cThis project now allows us to apply our breakthroughs in RNA therapy as part of a cure-directed strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n How iCure Works<\/strong> In the first step, researchers reactivate the virus in a sample of the participant\u2019s blood and identify mutations that the participant has not yet developed antibodies against. They then develop a tailored antibody therapy cocktail specifically designed against these specific mutations.<\/p>\n In the next stage, researchers focus on preventing HIV from returning. To do this, they develop person-specific antibodies or small molecule binders that can act as \u201choming devices\u201d \u2014 beacons that can lead immune cells to the latent virus. Then they genetically modify CAR-T cells and NK cells (immune cells that destroy viruses) to express or use these homing devices to better clear infected cells.<\/p>\n Story Continues <\/p>\n Finally, researchers further enhance NK cells. First, they develop stronger and more durable cells, called adaptive NK cells, by supercharging their virus-killing ability. Then, they deploy small-molecule drugs called bispecifics, which bind NK cells to the infected cells they are targeting.<\/p>\n “iCure takes full advantage of the advances made in understanding how and where HIV hides from the immune system,” said Montaner. “We\u2019ve built on our knowledge and can use that information to identify a first of its kind targeting to a person\u2019s unique HIV features.”<\/p>\n iCure furthers the research groundwork laid by the BEAT-HIV Martin Delaney Collaboratory (beat-hiv.org), a Philadelphia-based consortium of more than 95 leading HIV researchers co-led by Dr. Montaner.<\/p>\n Montaner called the NIH grant a \u201conce in a lifetime opportunity\u201d that reflects Wistar\u2019s track record as a scientific leader in the effort to develop an HIV cure, as well as its grassroots support and collaboration with the HIV community.<\/p>\n \u201cBy the end of this study we hope to have a process by which to identify the virus that we need to go after in each person and have a basis to design clinical trials choosing the best of these strategies to move forward,\u201d said Montaner.<\/p>\n Other institutions participating in this study include Johns Hopkins Medicine and iCure co-principal investigator Robert Siliciano, M.D., Ph.D., the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia FIGHT, the Ragon Institute at Harvard University, George Washington University, Duke University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The iCure program is funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of NIH, under award number UM1AI191272.<\/p>\n ###<\/p>\n The Wistar Institute is an international leader in biomedical research with special expertise in cancer research and vaccine development. Founded in 1892 as the first independent nonprofit biomedical research institute in the United States, Wistar has held the prestigious Cancer Center designation from the National Cancer Institute since 1972. The Institute works actively to ensure that research advances move from the laboratory to the clinic as quickly as possible. wistar.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n CONTACT: Darien Sutton The Wistar Institute 215-870-2048 dsutton@wistar.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Philadelphia-led consortium is selected to tailor HIV curative strategies to participant Philadelphia, PA, Aug. 19, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[18,135,575,9750,19,17,9751,9753,9752,9755,9754,9749],"class_list":{"0":"post-10040","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-hiv","11":"tag-icure-consortium","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-luis-j-montaner","15":"tag-national-institutes-of-health","16":"tag-natural-killer","17":"tag-neutralizing-antibody","18":"tag-nk","19":"tag-wistar-institute"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u2022 Wake the latent virus
\u2022 Map and target unique weak spots with tailored antibodies
\u2022 Destroy infected cells using \u201csuper\u2011charged\u201d CAR\u2011T and NK cells
\u2022 Enhance clearance and block relapse with bispecific binders<\/p>\n