HIV Reservoirs and Eradication Group HIV infection can be controlled by antiretroviral therapy which must be taken li fe-long

because the retrovirus lies dormant in reservoir cells. The next challen ge is, therefore, to find a true HIV cure. A science group has just be founded t o achieve this goal. Toulon, Var, February 27, 2012 -- HIV-1 infection chronically concerns 34 millio n individuals worldwide. Although it is no longer a death sentence in countries having access to antiretroviral therapy, it remains such a threat in poor-resour ce countries. Actually, worldwide antiretroviral coverage is less than half of c ases needing it. Even in developed countries, the picture is not so bright. In the United States of America, figures published at the end of 2011 showed that only 28 percent of patients with HIV infection achieved and maintained undetectable levels of plasm a viremia below 50 copies/ml. When antiretroviral therapy is available and effective, problems of compliance, toxicity, long-term side effects and cost remain to be solved. This is explained by the fact that antiretroviral therapy must be taken daily and life-long due t o the persistence of HIV reservoirs able to rekindle infection each time the dru gs are stopped. In 2003, a core group of researchers founded the first edition of the "Internati onal Workshop on HIV Persistence, reservoirs and eradication strategies". This b iennial meeting took place in December 2011 for its last edition and will be ree dited in Miami in December 2013. Over the years, it allowed building a community of scientists, researchers, clin icians and patients' advocates to work on HIV reservoirs and HIV eradication. Th is working group has just launched online on Linkedin a "meeting point" in order t o gather most of the community working on these aspects: http://www.linkedin.com /groups/HIV-Reservoirs-Group-4286246 There are several new avenues to explore ying to induce a "functional cure" where no viral replication is detected in the second one is a "sterilizing cure" where in terms of HIV cure. One of them is tr HIV genetic material is still there but absence of antiretroviral therapy. The no trace of HIV is left.

Researchers from this group are testing three main strategies to attack HIV rese rvoirs: -starting antiretroviral therapy at the very early stages of acute HIV infection (within a few days) -reactivating latent HIV in order to purge the viral reservoir, -developing immune interventions to control the HIV reservoir without antiretrov iral drugs -making immune cells resistant to HIV by gene therapy. The online HIV reservoirs meeting point will be a new step to share ideas and pr eliminary results of these experiments. Contact: Alain Lafeuillade General Hospital CHITS 83056 Toulon France 33-494616340 lafeuillade@orange.fr

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