amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, is currently inviting grant proposals for biomedical research projects with a focus on exploring the mechanisms for HIV persistence and the potential for HIV eradication.
This Request for Proposals seeks proposals relevant to exploring the mechanisms for HIV persistence and the potential for HIV eradication. Specific areas of interest include:
- Novel strategies/approaches for preventing the establishment of, or eliminating, viral reservoirs
- Understanding and characterizing cellular and tissue locations of reservoirs and their relative importance in maintaining infection in the face of ART and the immune system
- Understanding the extent to which persistence is due to true latency versus low level replication. How does the effect of ART differ in each case?
- Is there a threshold viral load below which infection will not be re-seeded?
- Studies in elite controllers and/or acute (i.e. the absence of antibody positivity) infection cohorts that may help define new mechanisms of persistence that are not HLA-driven.
- Does persistent immune activation point to a need for long-term immune reconstitution strategies? Are there benefits to immune therapy?
- Improved assays to quantify integrated versus unintegrated DNA, or characterize replication competence. Do these differ between tissues, in patients treated during acute versus chronic infection, or in progressors versus controllers?
- Improved assays to more efficiently and inexpensively measure extremely low viral load (e.g., to 0.01 copies/ml) or (changes in) the size of the persistent reservoir.
- Deep sequencing approaches to compare viruses in different tissue compartments with those in plasma following treatment interruption, with a view to identifying sources of viral rebound
Eligibility and Conditions
Principal investigators must hold a doctoral level degree and be affiliated with the applicant institution. If a proposal includes subcomponent projects, the principal investigator will be expected to lead one of the component projects, coordinate the development, implementation, and analysis of the project as a whole, and be responsible for the preparation and submission of required progress reports.
Collaborating investigators lead a component project and play an active role in the development, implementation, and analysis of the project as a whole. Collaborating investigators must hold a doctoral degree and may be affiliated with any research organization, including governmental units or agencies.
Research grants are given to non-profit institutions worldwide to support investigator-led projects approved by the Foundation. In general, funds are applied to direct costs of salaries and fringe benefits for professional and technical personnel, laboratory supplies and equipment, travel, and the publication of findings. This initiative will provide support for two years without assurance of continued funding.
Late date for submission by e-mail is October 25, 2011 and for Hard Copy submission, the last date is November 1, 2011.
For more information, visit this link.
