amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, has awarded over $3.5 million for 13 new research grants to support innovative approaches to deplete or eliminate persistent reservoirs of HIV not cleared by antiretroviral therapy – considered the main barrier to a cure. The grants represent the latest investments in the Foundation’s Countdown to a Cure for AIDS initiative, which is aimed at developing the scientific basis of a cure by the end of 2020.

Through the amfAR Research Consortium on HIV Eradication (ARCHE), a programme that fosters collaboration among teams of scientists, more than $2.3 million in grants were awarded to seven teams of researchers working on gene therapy-based approaches to curing HIV. While pharmacological and immunological approaches remain the dominant cure strategies, the Berlin patient’s cure involved a procedure that points to the promise of gene therapy.

In a second round of grants, amfAR awarded $1.2 million to six researchers who will explore mechanisms of HIV persistence and the potential for HIV eradication. These "Innovation" grants are designed to test and advance innovative ideas in the early stages of testing.

To date, amfAR has awarded Countdown grants totalling close to $42 million, to support research conducted by more than 222 scientists working at 74 institutions in 10 countries around the world