Addressing The Major Challenges In HIV Vaccine And Cure Research
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$16,136,755.00
Summary
HIV remains one of the defining global health challenge of our times. 37 million people are living with HIV with 2 million new infections each year. Despite advances in management of HIV infection with antiretroviral therapy, there is still no cure, no effective vaccine, and several co-infections reduce life expectancy. This program assembles Australia’s leading HIV researchers to use innovative basic and translational science to tackle priority areas in controlling the HIV epidemic.
The development of cures, vaccines and better treatments for HIV/AIDS is an urgent global health priority. This team of seven groups in Sydney and Melbourne will study how HIV can lie dormant in some parts of the body, evading eradication by HIV therapy, as well as how the immune system responds to the virus. This will allow for design of novel vaccines and treatments. The researchers have skills in basic virology and immunology, and translating laboratory findings into human clinical trials.
This Program Grant brings together a world-leading team of experts to elucidate mechanisms that protect most people from infection by making antibodies, and their failure caused by genes or infections like influenza or HIV. The team will determine mechanisms that protect most people from making antibodies against normal parts of our body, whose failure causes numerous autoimmune diseases including rheumatoid arthritis. The team will develop ways to engineer better antibodies.
Uncovering The Basis Of Inflammatory And Immunodeficiency Diseases
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$15,718,075.00
Summary
A world-class team from 3 institutions, spanning disciplines of clinical and experimental immunology, therapeutics, signalling and genetics, will identify how immune and inflammatory responses are controlled in both health and disease. The major outcomes of this work will be the generation of new knowledge, concepts and approaches to diagnose, prevent and treat the major human health problems of autoimmune diseases, inflammation, allergy and immunodeficiency.
Hepatitis C affects a quarter of a million Australians, causing insidious but progressive liver disease which culminates in liver failure or cancer. There is no vaccine and prevention programs have limited effectiveness, but new antiviral therapies now offer high rates of cure. This Program will evaluate strategies to improve the health of those affected and prevent new infections by better understanding of the virus and the body’s immune response, including scarring and liver cancer formation.
New Interventions To Control Sexually Transmitted Infections And Their Consequences
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$10,807,896.00
Summary
Sexually transmitted infections are important causes of illness and death in Australia and globally. Populations particularly affected in Australia include young people, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and homosexual men. We have established a highly successful collaboration between two leading centres, that will discover new information about the biology of infection, and assess new clinical strategies for preventing and treating these infections and their consequences