ARCHIVED - Research About – HIV/AIDS

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The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is the Government of Canada's agency for health research. CIHR's mission is to create new scientific knowledge and to catalyze its translation into improved health, more effective health services and products, and a strengthened Canadian health-care system. Composed of 13 Institutes, CIHR provides leadership and support to more than 13,000 health researchers and trainees across Canada. Through CIHR, the Government of Canada invested approximately $39.7 million in 2008-09 in HIV/AIDS research.

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The Facts

• The first case of AIDS in Canada was reported in 1982. From 1985 through June of 2008, there were 66,106 positive HIV tests reported across Canada, 83% of which were adult males.
• After levelling off in the mid-1990s, the estimated total number of people living with HIV in Canada started increasing in the late 1990s, due in part to the life-prolonging effects of antiretroviral drugs.
• The annual number of newly reported HIV infections increased from 2,470 in 2002 to 2,511 in 2007. Unprotected sex between men continues to account for the largest proportion of new HIV infections.
• Every day around the world, more than 6,800 people become infected with HIV and more than 5,700 people die from AIDS.
• There were 32.2 million people living with HIV in 2007, 2.5 million of whom were newly infected. Globally, there were 2.1 million AIDS deaths in 2007.
• An estimated 4 million people in low- and middle-income countries were receiving antiretroviral therapy at the end of 2008, compared to 3 million in 2007 and 400,000 in 2003.

Sources: Public Health Agency of Canada, United Nations, World Health Organization

Finding Solutions

Can/Am team tracks how immune system battles herpes

A team of Canadian and American researchers have discovered how the body's immune system recognizes and attacks the cold-sore-causing Type 1 herpes simplex virus (HSV‑1). University of Montreal researchers, taking part in a joint project with Washington University and Pennsylvania State University, found that the nuclear membrane of a cell in mice infected with HSV‑1 can reveal the virus and stimulate the immune system to go after it. The University of Montreal's Dr. Michel Desjardins, a Canada Research Chair in Cellular Microbiology, was senior author of the CIHR-supported study. Published in June in Nature Immunology, it could lead to future therapies to keep the hard-to-pin-down HSV‑1 and other viruses, such as HIV, under control.

Scientists probe proteins for HIV immunity

Scientists at the University of Manitoba have identified more than 15 proteins found to be "differently expressed" in female Kenyan sex workers who are immune to HIV. The researchers, with colleagues at the National Microbiology Laboratory and the University of Nairobi, are focusing on those proteins that have anti-viral properties and are more abundant among the sex workers. "We think that if you can trigger 'good immune responses' (with one or more proteins), that might be what is protecting these women," co-author Dr. Blake Ball told the Winnipeg Free Press. The study results were published in the Journal of Proteome Research.

The Researchers

Dr. Michael Grant – Beating HIV at Its Own Game

The label on the small, plastic vial of blood reads 001. "Thirteen years ago subject 001 was the first HIV-infected subject to enroll in our research project," says Memorial University's Dr. Michael Grant.

For Dr. Grant, subject 001's blood is a sign of both past success and future hope in the struggle to control the deadly HIV virus. For, if Dr. Grant is right, the blood holds vital clues that will lead to a new generation of HIV vaccines.

During the past thirteen years Dr. Grant, an immunologist, has led a CIHR-supported research program that has collected periodic blood samples from a total of 223 patients at the St. John's, Newfoundland HIV clinic.

"These patients are now one of the best immunologically characterized groups of HIV-infected people in Canada," Dr. Grant says.

The blood samples give Dr. Grant a bird's-eye view of a long-running battle. By analyzing the blood samples, his lab group has tracked how changes in drug strategy have affected the success of both the HIV virus and patients' immune systems. This extends from the time 20 years ago when there were no specific treatments, to the advent of powerful antiretroviral drugs a decade ago.

And all along, Dr. Grant's lab group has intently monitored the behaviour of one specific sub-group of immune cells, the cytotoxic T-cells. These are the immune cells whose role is to kill virus-infected cells.

With HIV, says Dr. Grant, one problem for treatment is that the virus is able to cloak its presence from the cytotoxic T-cells. The immune cells are activated by the presence of small peptides, parts of proteins, attached to the HIV virus. But, with billions of HIV viruses reproducing every day, the HIV virus manages to mutate rapidly enough to create peptides that avoid detection.

Dr. Grant's tactic is to try and beat HIV at its own game by creating artificial HIV-like peptides that do trigger the cytotoxic T-cells.

His lab is analyzing subjects' blood for those HIV peptides that evoke the strongest immune response. These peptides are then chemically engineered to create synthetic variants that trigger an even greater immune response.

Once these more reactive peptides are identified, Dr. Grant hopes they can be used to create the first effective peptide vaccine for HIV.

"The gains in treating HIV/AIDS have been incremental," says Dr. Grant. "But we know if we can keep the virus in check, we reduce the rate of disease progression—and maybe even stop it."

And subject 001 is living proof of what's already been accomplished—and the hope of more to come.

For More Information

CIHR's Institute of Infection and Immunity (CIHR-III) has identified five areas of research for focused investment: emerging infections and microbial resistance, HIV/AIDS, immunotherapy, pandemic influenza preparedness and vaccines of the 21st Century. To learn more about these priorities and other CIHR-III activities, please visit the Institute's website.

For more information, go to ARCHIVED - Your Health Research Dollars at Work.