Two UdeM researchers receive funding of $ 5.75 million to defeat HIV

The projects of the teams led by Nicolas Chomont and Andrés Finzi, professors in the Department of Microbiology, Infectiology and Immunology of the University of Montreal, are among the six studies selected by the Health Research Institutes of Canada (IRSC) as part of The HIV/AIDS research initiative and other ITSS. These innovative projects, carried out at the CHUM Research Center (CRCHUM), aim to understand and fight the mechanisms that allow the virus to persist in the body.
Find the hiding places of the virus
Nicolas Chomont and his team receive $ 3.75 million over five years in order to continue the work undertaken by Cancure, a research consortium created a decade ago under the leadership of Professor Éric Cohen, vice-dean and researcher at the Montreal Clinical Research Institute.
“Our objective is to precisely map the refuges of the virus in the body and to understand how he manages to hide it,” explains Nicolas Chomont. This research mobilizes 14 leading Canadian researchers, including the Dr Guy Sauvageau, from the Department of Medicine, as well as Petronela Ancuta and the Dr Elie Haddad, from the Department of Microbiology, Infectiology and Immunology of UDEM. About twenty international specialists also collaborate in the project.
Today, antiretroviral therapy allows HIV -positive people to live longer and healthier. However, the virus persists in certain fabrics of the organism – intestine, lymph nodes, lungs and brain – forming what are called “viral tanks”.
Thanks to privileged access to samples of fabrics from living and deceased donors, the team will particularly study the tanks located in intestinal mucous membranes and lymphoid tissues. It will also examine why the virus reappears when the treatment is interrupted. Innovative clinical trials are planned, including the use of fecal microbiota transplants to reduce the activity of viral tanks during treatment.
A new detection and elimination strategy
For its part, the Andrés Finzi team receives $ 2 million over five years to develop a double strategy for detecting and eliminating infected cells. The team will work in collaboration with Martine Tétreault, professor in the Department of Neuroscience at Udem and researcher at CRCHUM, American partners and the Immune Biosolutions company.
“Most patients who follow antiretroviral therapy have the immune defenses necessary to eliminate infected cells,” says Andrés Finzi. But their immune system fails to identify these cells, probably because it does not detect envelope glycoprotein [Env] you virus. »
The team designed a technique called Env-Flow which allows the cells to be uncovered constituting the viral tank. The next step is to “wake up” the virus in these cells to produce the protein approx, making it visible for the immune system. To strengthen the immune response, the team will use synthetic molecules imitating the CD4 receptor, a key protein in HIV infection.
This research will be carried out in the laboratory on seropositive patient cells and on animal models.
HIV Healing Strategy Symposium
To find out more about these promising advances, go to the second symposium on the healing of HIV, on April 25, at the amphitheater of the Crchum. Online registrations.