Health

‘Kick and Kill’ to Cure HIV

Published on July 13, 2016

“This is essentially like curing a cancer.”

“This is essentially like curing a cancer.”

“We’re trying to develop a new medical therapy – something that has never been done – the eradication of a viral infection that is integrated into the host’s genome. This is essentially like curing a cancer.” – David Margolis, MD, director of the UNC HIV Cure Center

Worldwide, 37 million people are living with HIV. The National Institutes of HealthOpens in new window (NIH) have awarded CARE, the Collaboratory of AIDS Researchers for Eradication, which is based at UNC, renewed funding of nearly $23 million over the next five years to continue research on their innovative “kick and kill” strategy for eradicating HIV.

Nancie Archin, Ph.D., has spent nearly a decade at Carolina working to understand HIV. She and teams of researchers pursue the “kick and kill” approach to curing HIV — “kicking” the virus out of latency or dormancy, and exposing it to antiretrovirals. In a first-of- its-kind public-private partnership with GSK, Carolina is dedicated to accelerating a cure for HIV.

Read the complete Carolina Story here…Opens in new window

This is story number 107 in the Carolina Stories 225th Anniversary Edition magazine.

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