Grant: Doctoral: Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships

Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has become the mainstay of medical treatment for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, allowing patients to have near-normal life expectancies. However, HAART is associated with a wide range of potential side effects, requires a high level of adherence, and continues to be a very costly approach. Most importantly, life-long treatment on HAART alone will not be enough to end the HIV pandemic because HIV has the capacity to infect and remain in a latent state in cells throughout the body, allowing it to escape the immune response and drug targeting. Oncolytic viruses (OVs) are viruses that have been engineered to selectively target and kill cancer cells, sparing healthy, normal cells. The ability of OVs to specifically infect cancer cells is due to abnormalities found in these cells, which impair their ability to produce an antiviral response. Several of the same abnormalities are also seen in the HIV-infected cells. It is therefore possible that these viruses can target HIV-infected cells as well. It is with this in mind that we will determine whether: 1) two promising OVs preferentially infect and kill HIV-infected cells as compared to uninfected cells and 2) these viruses can eliminate cells that represent the latent HIV reservoir that have been isolated from HIV-infected patients who are effectively treated with HAART. If OVs possess or can be designed to possess the ability to target and kill the latently HIV-infected cells, the results of this study have the potential to lead to development of novel treatments that can significantly advance the medical management of HIV infection, improve patients' quality of life, and reduce the global burden of the HIV pandemic.