For January 2025 there were only two updates to TAG’s listing, likely reflecting the holiday period since the December update.
New Links to Study Results
Both updates were links to newly available results from studies in the listing.
At the HIV Persistence Workshop last December in Fort Lauderdale, James McMahon and colleagues presented preliminary information from an ongoing trial of low doses of the PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab in people with HIV on antiretroviral therapy (ART). A total of 17 participants had been enrolled, with 12 receiving a single dose of either 0.1 or 0.3 mg/kg of nivolumab (six participants per dose group).
No immune-related adverse events (a known risk associated with the doses used to treat cancer) have occurred, with the main side effect appearing to relate to a sampling procedure to extract lymph node tissue from the groin area: mild groin bruising or pain in 11 participants. Six participants also reported mild fatigue.
Nivolumab successfully bound to PD-1 receptors on CD4 and CD8 T cells, with higher occupancy seen at the higher dose. The abstract doesn’t contain any data from the ongoing highest dose cohort receiving 1 mg/kg (which also plans to include six participants). A second part of the trial will evaluate whether receipt of nivolumab influences HIV viral load rebound during an analytical treatment interruption (ATI).
Mareva Delporte from the HIV Cure Research Center at Ghent University has led work to develop a new type of test to measure the size of the HIV reservoir. The test is novel because it captures both total HIV DNA and the amount of HIV DNA that appears intact and potentially capable of generating new virus copies. Initial testing involved participants from one of the observational studies included in TAG’s listing, HIV-Mercuri (NCT04305665). Results were published in the journal Clinical Chemistry and indicate that the test, named the Rainbow proviral HIV-1 DNA dPCR assay, may have advantages compared to others already in use (such as the intact proviral DNA assay or IPDA).
Coda
Sadly there are also broader issues relating to HIV cure research that deserve mention this month. The incoming new US Presidential administration has launched an unprecedented attack on science, stopping external communications, travel, and hiring at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and derailing their work in multiple other ways that are still coming to light – including stopping essential grant reviews, which will drastically affect the conduct of studies. The administration’s nominee for the position of Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees NIH, supports AIDS denialism and has recently uttered the following egregious lie that indicates complete ignorance of more than three decades of scientific research:
RFK Jr: "There are much better candidates than HIV for what causes AIDS."
This is in addition to his reprehensible, lucrative history of denying the efficacy of vaccines.
TAG is collaborating with many others to fight back against these politically motivated anti-science attacks and oppose the nomination of RFK Jr. See also TAG’s statements on the appalling executive orders attempting to deny the humanity of transgender, non-binary, and intersex people and withdrawing the US from the World Health Organization.
Leave a Reply