Researchers around the world are making advances in understanding how HIV becomes latent and seeking out vulnerabilities that could provide routes to targeting reservoirs and eliminating them. The virus persists in some cells after infection despite antiretroviral therapy (ART) and these contain inactive proviruses that can replicate and trigger the disease.

In HIV research, scientists are directing their efforts in several directions, attempting to prevent the infection, develop a vaccine, stop infection with the HIV virus progressing to AIDS, and eliminating reservoirs of dormant virus.

Clade C subtype-specific HIV-1 infections are responsible for over 48% of global HIV-1 burden. Aiming to develop a vaccine that provides heterologous protection against HIV, a research group led by investigators from the Emory Vaccine Center at Emory University recently reported a novel clade C HIV-1 vaccine.

Investigators from Emory University and affiliated organizations presented preclinical data for the IAP inhibitor AZD-5582 (AstraZeneca), which has previously demonstrated the ability to systemically reverse latency in animal models of HIV.