July 17, 2024
Provided Image/Wistar Institute
Researchers Brijesh Karanam and Jessicamarie Morris work in a lab at the Wistar Institute. The biomedical research institute in Philadelphia is dedicating $24 million to expand its research into finding a cure for HIV and new ways to fight other viruses.
The Wistar Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to biomedical research, is investing $24 million to advance its efforts to identify a cure for HIV.
Part of the goal in creating a center at a second Philadelphia campus is to find a vaccine to immunize against the virus or a way to eradicate the virus once people have contracted it – or both, said Dr. Dario Altieri, Wistar's president and CEO.
"Everything is on the table for sure," Altieri said.
Wistar has been conducting HIV research for 25 years, independently and in collaboration with regional partners, including the University of Pennsylvania. Its new HIV Cure and Viral Diseases Center will prioritize research into cure strategies that have potential to be used around the world.
Globally, more than 39 million people live with HIV. About 18,700 people in Philadelphia have been diagnosed with HIV, according to a 2022 surveillance report, the most current statistics available from the Department of Public Health.
Antiretroviral medicines help people with HIV live longer, healthier lives and reduce the risk of passing HIV from person to person. That makes living with HIV much like living with other chronic diseases. But many people around the world do not have access to these medicines due to global disparities in health care.
Finding a cure for HIV has been elusive, in large part because the virus mutates and evades immune responses. Wistar scientists hope further discoveries into how to address HIV also will help in the eradication of other viruses and in the prevention of future pandemics, Altieri said.
"As we learn more about how the HIV virus escapes the immune system, how it manages to evade our own defenses, what we use in our bodies in order to fight infection – if we learn that in great detail, it might be the same mechanisms that other viruses also use to evade our immune cells," Altieri said. "... The way we're investing right now in HIV research, but also in viral diseases, will hopefully make us a little bit more prepared for the next virus that is going to come along, and the next pandemic that is going to come along, because there will be another one, or more than one."
How close is Wistar to finding a cure for HIV?
"We've been fooled before," Altieri said. "We thought that we had figured it out, only to discover that we had not. And so I really don't want to put a timeline on that."
Founded in 1892, Wistar is the oldest nonprofit biomedical research institute in the country. It is completing a philanthropic campaign that raised the funds for the new center to be located in leased space at 3675 Market St. Wistar's main campus is at 3601 Spruce St.
