Grant: Project Grant

75,500 Canadians were living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus type 1 (HIV) infection in 2014 ,incidence rates are not clearly declining, and about 20% are unaware of infection. Combination antiretroviral therapy to prevent AIDS is lifelong costing over $800,000.00 /person. The reason why HIV needs to be treated lifelong is due to persistence of the virus in persons as a 'virus reservoir'. Interventions targeting viral reservoirs that would shorten or eliminate cART duration would result in substantial cost savings to society and less morbidity from persistent HIV infection. There is also no vaccine on the horizon. The current research program aims to study the immune system of humans against HIV in order to better 'educate' the immune system to eliminate the persistent virus reservoir and to improve the current ineffective vaccines. Our previous work has looked at how a crucial immune cell, the cytotoxic killer CD8 T cell is unable to eliminate HIV from the body. We previously showed that these cells are defective in their killing ability. Recent insights have shown that metabolism of these cells could be abnormal, causing the virus to escape from them. The current project will identify what metabolic defects are present in these cells so that they can be altered by drug treatment or immune therapies, to allow the killer cells to eliminate the virus from the body or prevent virus taking hold with a vaccine.