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Researchers continue to look for HIV cure

Category: HIV

With each passing year, scientists get closer to finding a cure for HIV. While there may still be some ways to go, this research brings hope to the millions of individuals who have received positive HIV tests.

This research recently received a new boost, as scientists from the Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University were given a $3 million grant from the Richard J. Fasenmyer Foundation to study ways to help the immune system fight an HIV infection.

"This is an extraordinary opportunity to continue collaboration that is furthering our understanding of the immune system as it relates to HIV," said Leonard Calabrese, who will lead the research. "We now have the tools to investigate HIV and to explore the mechanisms underlying immune-based therapies, which has importance to our knowledge of how to fine-tune HIV treatment."

Calabrese and his team of investigators plan to look at why some HIV patients who are receiving treatment to control the virus do not regain a fully functioning immune system. Propping up the immune system against the damage caused by the virus is considered to be one of the keys to stopping its destructive tendencies.