For four decades, science has learned to silence HIV without learning to erase it — the virus persists, hidden in the body's own cells, waiting. Now amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, is committing $1.92 million to four research teams whose approaches borrow from mRNA vaccine technology, cancer immunotherapy, and precision immunology to confront that hidden reservoir directly. The funding arrives at a moment of paradox: scientific tools have never been more sophisticated, yet traditional research dollars are growing scarcer even as global infection rates climb. What these four studies sh
amfAR Funds Four Innovative HIV Cure Studies With $1.92M Investment
Over 40 million people globally live with HIV, with increasing infection rates in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Pacific, and major U.S. cities.
The hidden virus waits. Stop the pills, and it wakes up.
Mark
Why does the hidden reservoir matter so much? Can't we just keep people on medication indefinitely?
Mimi
In theory, yes. But medication requires daily adherence, and it's expensive. More fundamentally, the reservoir is why we don't have a cure yet. It's the virus that hides in cells and waits. Stop the pills, and it wakes up.
Mark
So these four projects are all trying to flush it out and destroy it?
Mimi
Three of them are, in different ways. Betts wants to wake it up and kill it in one move. Van Lint wants to understand how the body's own immune cells are actually protecting the virus, then block that protection. Maldini is building immune cells that can adapt as the virus mutates.
Mark
And Bournazos?
Mimi
He's thinking differently. Instead of eradicating the virus, he's trying to make the immune system strong enough to control it indefinitely without pills. That's a functional cure—not destroying the virus, but making it irrelevant.
Mark
Why is funding so tight right now if this research is so promising?
Mimi
HIV isn't the crisis it was in the 1980s and 90s. Medications work. People aren't dying at the same rates. So funding shifted elsewhere. But the virus hasn't gone away—40 million people still live with it, and infections are rising in some regions. The researchers are still here. The science is still moving. But the money dried up.
Mark
So amfAR is filling a gap?
Mimi
Exactly. They're the reliable funder when everyone else has moved on. That's actually a powerful position to be in.
The Pulse
- More than 40 million people live with HIV worldwide, and infection rates are rising in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Pacific, and major American cities — yet funding for cure research is contracting, not expanding.
- The central barrier remains the latent reservoir: dormant virus hidden inside cells, invisible to current drugs, capable of reigniting the moment treatment stops.
- Four research teams are now testing radically different strategies — mRNA nanoparticles that wake and destroy hidden virus, CRISPR mapping of immune evasion, reprogrammable CAR T cells that adapt as HIV mutates, and antibody therapies engineered to sustain long-term immune control.
- Each approach draws on recent breakthroughs — COVID vaccine platforms, cancer treatment protocols — repurposing them for the specific, stubborn biology of HIV.
- AmfAR reports a sharp rise in funding requests from HIV researchers over the past two years, signaling that the scientific momentum is real but the financial infrastructure to support it is under strain.
- The organization's leadership frames this investment not as charity but as continuity — a deliberate choice to remain a reliable source of support precisely when conventional funding disappears.
For four decades, science has learned to silence HIV without learning to erase it — the virus persists, hidden in the body's own cells, waiting. Now amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, is committing $1.92 million to four research teams whose approaches borrow from mRNA vaccine technology, cancer immunotherapy, and precision immunology to confront that hidden reservoir directly. The funding arrives at a moment of paradox: scientific tools have never been more sophisticated, yet traditional research dollars are growing scarcer even as global infection rates climb. What these four studies share is not a single answer, but a shared conviction that the cure exists and that the obstacle is not imagination — it is resources.
Four research teams across the United States and Europe are preparing to test fundamentally different approaches to curing HIV, each backed by $480,000 over two years from amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research. The $1.92 million commitment arrives as traditional funding sources grow harder to access — even as more than 40 million people live with the virus globally and new infections are rising in several regions and major American cities.
The obstacle all four projects share is the latent reservoir: HIV that lies dormant inside a person's cells, invisible to antiretroviral drugs, capable of reactivating if treatment stops. At the University of Pennsylvania, Michael Betts is adapting the mRNA lipid nanoparticle technology behind COVID vaccines to do two things simultaneously — rouse the sleeping virus from its hiding places in lymph nodes, and direct immune cells into those same nodes to destroy what they find.
At the University of Brussels, Carine Van Lint is asking a different question: how do the body's own CD8+ T cells help conceal the reservoir from immune detection? Using genome-wide CRISPR screening, she will map those concealment mechanisms and test whether blocking them — combined with an mRNA therapy designed to reverse latency — can expose the virus to attack.
In Philadelphia, Colby Maldini at The Wistar Institute is borrowing from cancer medicine. CAR T cell therapy has transformed oncology but struggled against HIV because the virus mutates faster than engineered cells can track. Maldini's solution is to build molecular switches into the next generation of CAR T cells — controls that allow doctors to reprogram them after they enter the body, keeping them effective as HIV shifts shape.
At Rockefeller University, Stylianos Bournazos is working with broadly neutralizing antibodies that can help the immune system control HIV but currently cannot sustain that control without daily medication. He will test whether pairing an optimized HIV antibody with a drug that activates key immune cells can produce durable suppression — potentially freeing people from the daily pill regimen that defines life with HIV today.
AmfAR's Vice President of Research, Dr. Andrea Gramatica, described the four proposals as representing the kind of unconventional thinking the organization was built to support. The funding announcement reflects both a scientific moment — tools from mRNA research and cancer immunotherapy now applicable to HIV — and an institutional one. AmfAR CEO Kyle Clifford noted that requests from HIV researchers have increased markedly over the past two years, a sign that opportunity is growing even as the broader funding landscape narrows. The organization, he said, intends to remain a dependable presence for researchers who need support precisely when other sources fall away.
Four research teams across the country are about to test radically different approaches to curing HIV, each one funded with $480,000 over two years by amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research. The total commitment—$1.92 million—arrives at a moment when the landscape for HIV research funding has grown precarious, even as more than 40 million people worldwide live with the virus and new infections are climbing in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Pacific, and several major American cities.
The researchers represent some of the most ambitious thinking in the field. Michael Betts at the University of Pennsylvania is adapting the mRNA lipid nanoparticle technology that proved its worth in COVID vaccines. His plan is to engineer these particles to accomplish two things at once: wake up the dormant HIV hiding inside lymph nodes, and simultaneously program immune cells to enter those same nodes and destroy the infected cells they find there. The hidden reservoir—virus that lies latent in a person's cells, invisible to treatment—has been the central obstacle to an HIV cure for decades. Current medications can suppress active virus, but if someone stops taking them, the dormant virus can reactivate and spread.
Carine Van Lint at the University of Brussels is approaching the reservoir problem from a different angle. She wants to understand exactly how the body's CD8+ T cells actually help conceal the HIV reservoir from other immune defenses. Using genome-wide CRISPR screening, she will map out the mechanisms at work, then test whether blocking those pathways—combined with an mRNA-based therapy designed to reverse latency—can expose the hidden virus and make it vulnerable to attack. The Foundation for AIDS and Immune Research is providing additional support for this work.
Colby Maldini at The Wistar Institute in Philadelphia is borrowing a page from cancer medicine. CAR T cell therapy has transformed cancer treatment, but it has stumbled against HIV because the virus mutates so quickly that the engineered cells lose their target. Maldini's innovation is to build molecular switches into the next generation of CAR T cells—controls that would allow doctors to reprogram them after they enter the body, so they can keep hunting HIV even as it shifts and changes shape.
The fourth researcher, Stylianos Bournazos at The Rockefeller University, is working with broadly neutralizing antibodies—proteins that can help the immune system control HIV but currently cannot generate the sustained T cell response needed to keep the virus suppressed without daily medication. Bournazos will test whether combining an optimized HIV antibody with a CD40 agonist, a drug that activates key immune cells, can strengthen and prolong the antibody's effect. If it works, people living with HIV might achieve long-term control without taking pills every day.
AmfAR's Vice President of Research, Dr. Andrea Gramatica, emphasized that the organization was impressed by the caliber of thinking in all four proposals. "A successful approach to curing HIV is out there," she said, "but it's going to require financial support for out-of-the-box research." The funding announcement comes as amfAR has seen a marked increase in requests from HIV researchers over the past two years—a sign that traditional funding sources have become harder to access even as the scientific opportunity has grown clearer. Kyle Clifford, amfAR's CEO, noted that the organization has built a reputation as a reliable supporter of innovative work precisely when other money dries up. "We intend to continue to earn that reputation for as long as there are researchers who need support," he said.
AmfAR's own history underscores why this moment matters. Over more than four decades, the organization's funded research has identified the protein HIV uses to enter human cells, pioneered prevention of mother-to-child transmission, and contributed to many of the antiretroviral drugs now in use. The four new studies represent the next chapter in that work—a push toward not just managing HIV but ending it.
Notable Quotes
A successful approach to curing HIV is out there, but it's going to require financial support for out-of-the-box research, a role amfAR has always happily played in the ecosystem of HIV research.— Dr. Andrea Gramatica, amfAR Vice President of Research
Not only have funding opportunities for this work become increasingly rare, but amfAR has a long track record of being a reliable supporter for the most innovative and promising research.— Kyle Clifford, amfAR CEO
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