Dr. Brad Jones

Vaccination with a SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine revealed HIV hiding in immune cells in blood from people with HIV, according to lab research led by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators. 

Weill Cornell Medicine has been awarded a five-year, $28.5 million Martin Delaney Collaboratory grant from the National Institutes of Health to lead a multi-institutional effort aimed at finding a cure for HIV.

A team led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and Children’s National Hospital has developed a unique pre-clinical model that enables the study of long-term HIV infection, and the testing of new therapies aimed at curing the disease.

A new test for measuring the reservoir of HIV hidden in the cells of people with HIV failed to detect this reservoir in a significant number of people with a subtype of HIV-1, according to a study from scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine, Simon Fraser University and the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS.

T-cells taken from the blood of people who recovered from a COVID-19 infection can be successfully multiplied in the lab and maintain the ability to effectively target proteins that are key to the virus’s function.

Scientists have known for years that HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is difficult to cure because it hides from the body’s immune system. Research now reveals that the virus conceals itself in lymphocytes, or white blood cells, that are intrinsically hard to kill because they are resistant to killer T cells.

When longtime research collaborators Dr. Douglas Nixon and Dr. Brad Jones arrived at Weill Cornell Medicine last summer, they brought with them an ambitious goal: to find a cure for HIV.

As therapies for HIV infection have advanced to help many patients control the infection as a chronic disease, investigators and patients have set their sights on a new goal—finding a cure.