Duke Health awarded $27 million grant to build structural models of HIV to help advance the fight against the virus

A new $27 million federal grant will help Duke researchers and a few others research centers step up the fight against HIV.

Researchers are creating detailed HIV models to help develop new therapies and vaccines.

The five-year grant could provide a new sign of hope for those living with HIV. Structural computer modeling plays a key role.

"So this is a movie of a molecule shown in brown which is on the HIV surface," explained Priyamvada Archarya, Ph.D with the newly formed Duke Center for HIV Structural Biology.

The models developed and shared through collaborations with other grantees demonstrate how antibodies fight HIV-1 infection.

"And that helps us design better immunogens, which we can make better vaccines and better drugs," Archarya said.

The Duke team is focused how HIV enters host cells, how it engages the immune systems and how the virus rebounds once anti-retroviral therapy ends.

The strategy is already bearing fruit, according to Duke researcher Rory Henderson, Ph.D.

"It shows us that our predictions that we are making based on computational models are actually correct," Henderson said.

Henderson said HIV quickly mutates to become drug resistant, which requires a new drugs.

"So that we can beat HIV to the punch before it can get around our drugs," Henderson said. "We have a new drug that allows us to keep fighting against it."

Henderson adds the cutting edge research could move beyond just one disease challenge.

"Is to not only learn how HIV works but develop tools that allow us to apply this to anything," Henderson said. "It could be cancer research or viral or anything you can imagine."

Through the grant, the Duke Center for HIV Structural Biology will also provide a training and mentoring environment as well as funds and research opportunities for early career researchers.