AIDS research efforts at Duke University have landed three grants totaling $37.2 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The grants will fund Duke University Medical Center HIV work in the Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery (CAVD) program, an international network of scientists working to bring new HIV vaccine candidates into clinical trials. The CAVD launched in 2006 with funding from the Gates Foundation.
David Montefiori, professor of surgery and director of the Laboratory for AIDS Vaccine Research and Development, will receive $24.6 million over five years for his team to continue its work. A previous grant allowed Montefiori to establish the Comprehensive Antibody Vaccine Immune Monitoring Consortium, which monitors antibody responses in preclinical and clinical phases of vaccine testing as part of its effort to advance preclinical vaccine discoveries into clinical trials. The project was started with a five-year, $31.5 million Gates Foundation grant in 2006.
Dr. Baton Haynes, director of the Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology and also director of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute, will receive $11.7 million over three years to study the best way to create immunogens that mimic proteins on the HIV envelope that will help stimulate the right antibodies. Haynes will be working with Montefiori’s team.
Dr. Michael Frank, a professor of pediatrics and immunology, will receive an $892,000 grant over three years. Frank is researching the defensive role of complement proteins, proteins that are present before a person receives a vaccine and is immunized. This work aims to facilitate an immune response from a vaccine.
Image from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
