Radioimmunotherapy for cure of systemic and CNS HIV

Ekaterina Dadachova of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the U.S., in collaboration with Arturo Casadevall, proposes to use radioimmunotherapy as a strategy to eliminate HIV-infected cells in patients on anti-retroviral therapy. Targeting viral antigens on these cells with radioactivity-armed antibodies could lead to HIV eradication. This project's Phase I research demonstrated that radioimmunotherapy can kill HIV-infected primary human cells in conjunction with anti-retroviral therapy (ART) and that this antibody can also reach HIV-infected cells in the central nervous system. In Phase II, Dadachova and colleague Joan W. Berman will work with collaborators to study if radioimmunotherapy can kill cells latently infected with HIV, and will also investigate whether eradication of HIV in the central nervous system is an effective and safe modality.