HIVE Center Receives $27 Million in NIGMS Funding to Advance HIV Research

HIVE Center Receives $27 Million in NIGMS Funding to Advance HIV Research LA JOLLA, CA October 04, 2017 The HIV Interactions in Viral Evolution (HIVE) Center at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has been awarded nearly $27 million from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This continues the HIVE Center's crucial work for another five years studying at the atomic level the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS.

Viruses have complex interactions with the human host cells they infect, especially HIV given its capacity for utilizing human cell proteins, its ability to rapidly mutate to both immune and viral inhibitor-mediated pressures, and remain dormant in infected cells, noted HIVE Center Co-Director, Associate Professor Bruce Torbett. For the past five years, the NIGMS has funded five National Centers, of which the HIVE Center is one, dedicated to understanding how HIV functions in the body's immune cells and utilizes human cellular components to evolve, adapt and evade treatment.

The Center's highly collaborative researchers will continue to build on their past success of the initial HIVE funding period under Professor Arthur Olson. In the next five years, the goal of the Center's researchers is to obtain at the atomic level an understanding of the structural and dynamic relationships between interacting human host cell and HIV macromolecules in the HIV life cycle. These insights will shed light as to how HIV usurps human host cell proteins to move through the cell undetected and how the virus utilizes host cell proteins to insert its DNA into cellular chromatin. Genomic and structural studies on the development of HIV inhibitor resistance should provide insights for HIV inhibitor resistance prediction and novel therapies. The information obtained from all studies will help to develop computational models to visualize HIV, which should allow an unprecedented view as to how HIV is formed and functions within host cells according to Torbett.

The Center includes scientists from both the California and Florida campuses of TSRI. On the California campus, Arthur Olson, K. Barry Sharpless, James Williamson, David Millar, Stefano Forli and David Goodsell, and on the Florida campus, Patrick Griffin and Douglas Kojetin.

Other scientists from across the country and abroad also will participate as part of the Center research effort which includes Stefan Sarafianos (Co-Director with Torbett) of Emory University, Karin Musier-Forsyth of Ohio State University, Dmitry Lyumkis of The Salk Insitute, Edward Arnold of Rutgers University, Ronald Levy of Temple University, Jason Okulicz of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Joseph Marcotrigiano of National Institutes of Health, Alan Engelman of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Mamuka Kvaratskhelia of University of Colorado Denver, Michael Malim of King's College, London and Stephen Hughes of the National Cancer Institute-Frederick.

More details on the activities and resources of the HIVE Center can be found at: http://hivecenter.org.

About The Scripps Research Institute

The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) is one of the worlds largest independent, not-for-profit organizations focusing on research in the biomedical sciences. TSRI is internationally recognized for its contributions to science and health, including its role in laying the foundation for new treatments for cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, hemophilia, and other diseases. An institution that evolved from the Scripps Metabolic Clinic founded by philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps in 1924, the institute now employs more than 2,500 people on its campuses in La Jolla, CA, and Jupiter, FL, where its renowned scientists including two Nobel laureates and 20 members of the National Academies of Science, Engineering or Medicine work toward their next discoveries. The institutes graduate program, which awards PhD degrees in biology and chemistry, ranks among the top ten of its kind in the nation. In October 2016, TSRI announced a strategic affiliation with the California Institute for Biomedical Research (Calibr), representing a renewed commitment to the discovery and development of new medicines to address unmet medical needs. For more information, see www.scripps.edu.

# # #

For information:

Office of Communications

Tel: 858-784-2666

Fax: 858-784-8118

press@scripps.edu

LINK:	http://www.scripps.edu/news/press/2017/20171004TorbettGrant.html...
	See more stories from scripps

Most recent headlines