On Tuesday, December 8 at 11am ET, the International AIDS Society’s Towards an HIV Cure initiative is hosting a webinar, Paving the way for an HIV cure: Introducing Target Product Profiles (TPP) and the HIV Cure Africa Acceleration Partnership (HCAAP), to unpack two new articles just published in The Lancet HIV.

REGISTER HERE.

The articles argue why now is the time to focus on advancing HIV cure research. Outputs of a 2019 meeting of global stakeholders, these articles—The case for an HIV cure and how to get there and Multi Stakeholder Consensus on a Target Product Profile for an HIV Cure—make the case for the role an HIV cure can play in ending the epidemic, and share a roadmap to get there, including the role of community advocates.

As described in the articles and to be discussed on next week’s webinar, there is a need now for community advocates to provide input on acceptability of potential cure interventions, help to shape the policy environment, and enhance the capacity needed for cure trials, such as robust HIV and viral load testing. To that end, the proposed HCAAP plans to coordinate key stakeholders (e.g., regulators, funders, civil society, Ministries Of Health, researchers, etc.) across the public and private sectors to drive the development of a community-led cure research agenda and speed up access to a potential strategy in the future.

In this webinar, Jeff Taylor from the Care Collaboratory CAB at the University of North Carolina will discuss the basics needed to understand cure research and clinical trials, utilizing the CUREiculum, AVAC’s cure education tool.

Webinar objectives:

• Define terms needed to understand cure research
• Explore the major challenges to developing a cure
• Understand the current state of cure research

Register at http://bit.ly/cure101

This webinar covered the basics of cure research. The webinar was led by Nicolas Chomont, a leading researcher at the University of Montreal.

Topics covered during the webinar included:

• What are researchers talking about when they say “cure”?
• What kind of progress is being made toward a cure for HIV?
• How can we talk about HIV cure to our communities?
• What do we need to know before AIDS 2016?

SLIDES / AUDIO

For information on other CUREiculum webinars, visit here.

Based on the AVAC/UNAIDS Good Participatory Practice Guidelines (GPP), this module applies the principles found in the guidelines to early phase HIV cure research. The content is designed to help research teams, community members and other stakeholders understand and implement GPP in early phase research.

Slides and audio from this webinar are available for download below. And for information on the entire CUREiculum webinar series, click here.

Early ART does not cure HIV. However, researchers globally are looking to understand why some HIV-positive individuals can achieve a temporary remission while others rebound quickly after stopping treatment. This module gave an overview of the current research landscape and place early ART research in the larger framework of the HIV cure research agenda. The webinar was led by Dr. Jintanat Ananworanich, MD, PhD.

The HIV cure research field presents new challenges to study conduct, design, risk and a host of other issues — scientific, biological, social, ethical and regulatory — that many stakeholders are grappling with. This module will begin to unpack some of the ethical issues associated with HIV cure research.

The case of the “Mississippi child” has intrigued scientists since the case was first announced as “cured” in 2013. After the Mississippi child rebounded after two years of remission little has been mentioned about pediatric HIV cure research in the media. This webinar answered the essential questions about the state of the research and discussed the opportunities and challenges in pursuing curative strategies in pediatric populations.

Materials from additional webinars in the Cureiculum series are available, click here.

Professor Gail Henderson, PhD describes what regulatory processes are in place to keep participants in HIV cure research safe. In this webinar, she described the relationship between informed consent and ethical research, identified challenges of discussions around risks and benefits and provided points of considerations for the informed consent process.

Materials from additional webinars in the Cureiculum series are available, click here.

The Water Reed Army Institute of Research invited anyone in or near the DC area for a World AIDS Day seminar.

Jintanat Ananworanich, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Director for Therapeutics Research, MHRP, was the guest speaker.