searcHIV Blog

End of SearcHIV Grant

The searcHIV project was completed on May 31st, 2019. Even though the grant has ended, many of the ideas and activities will move forward. We started this project with the intention of exploring HIV cure research in the United States, … Read more

A Summary of Wu et al.’s Article: “Overcoming HIV Stigma”

By Alice Zhang People living with HIV (PLHIV) often face stigma that is multilayered and multifactorial. The stigma that they face can be associated with misconceptions about HIV, but it can also be linked to marginalized behaviors and identities. For … Read more

Recent HIV ‘Cure’ Claims in the Media: A Critical Response

By: Meredith Blumberg With some recent claims circulating in the media about HIV ‘cures,’ it is important to restate that, currently, there is no cure for HIV. With daily antiretroviral therapy (ART), the HIV virus can be effectively suppressed and … Read more

Highlights from the 2017 CFAR HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) Summit

  By: Meredith Blumberg On September 25th, the 2017 PrEP Summit was held at the JB Duke Hotel in Durham, NC. The event was co-hosted by the UNC and Duke Centers for AIDS Research (CFARs). This summit served as an … Read more

Carl June – Keynote at the 2017 Cell and Gene Therapy Meeting

By Karine Dubé, David Palm and Jeff Taylor   Carl H. June, MD delivered the keynote speech at a University of Washington conference on engineered T cells for cancer and HIV. Dr. June is the Richard W. Vague Professor in … Read more

IAS 2017: HIV and Cancer Fields United in Dialogue to Accelerate Discovery in the Search towards ‘Sustained Virologic Remission’

                      By Karine Dubé  The International AIDS Society (IAS) 2017 conference was held in Paris, France in July 2017. A HIV Cure and Cancer Forum took place before the conference to explore the interconnectedness of HIV and cancer … Read more

Announcing New HIV Grant – Acute Infection: Lived Experiences and Ethical Challenges in HIV Research

by Adam Gilbertson, PhD The searcHIV and 2beatHIV teams are proud to announce funding for a new R21 grant led by our own Stuart Rennie and Adam Gilbertson. The focus of this project will be the ethical issues concerning HIV … Read more

CROI 2017 Community HIV Cure Research Workshop Highlights

By Karine Dubé  Every year, before the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infectious (CROI), HIV treatment and cure advocates gather to discuss updates around HIV cure science. Highlights from the CROI 2017 Community HIV Cure Research Workshop are below. Maureen … Read more

Women’s Research Initiative on HIV/AIDS 2016: Zooming in on Women’s Contributions in HIV Cure Research

By Karine Dubé   The 2016 Women’s Research Initiative on HIV/AIDS (WRI) meeting took place in Palmetto Bluff, Bluffton, South Carolina from December 1 – 4, 2016. The theme for this year’s meeting was: Women in HIV Cure Research: Advocating … Read more

HIV Cure Research Day

On Monday, December 12, the Durham County Board of Commissioners officially proclaimed December 14 as HIV Cure Research Day. Dr. Allison Mathews reflected on the importance of the day, “HIV Cure Research Day marks the one year anniversary of the … Read more

Report from the NIH Strategies for an HIV Cure Symposium

The NIH Strategies for an HIV Cure Symposium in Bethesda, MD from November 14-16, 2016 marks the inaugural organizational meeting for six research sites that were awarded funding by the NIH to be a part of the Martin Delaney Collaboratory … Read more

Leprosy Cures and Patients’ Expectations

by Dr. Raul Necochea & Dr. Adam Gilbertson, Dept. of Social Medicine, UNC School of Medicine Cure research has long raised and troubled the expectations of people afflicted by infectious diseases. Prior to the 1940s, Hansen’s disease (leprosy) was an … Read more

Highlights from the NIH-Sponsored Workshop on HIV Cure in November 2016

By Karine Dubé The National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) hosted its most recent HIV cure strategies meeting from November 14 – 16, 2016. The purpose of the workshop was to facilitate and foster collaboration across the new … Read more

International AIDS Society Releases 2016 Global Scientific Strategy Towards an HIV Cure

By Karine Dubé and Joseph D. Tucker The ‘Towards an HIV Cure’ initiative of International AIDS Society (IAS) has released its 2016 global scientific strategy towards an HIV cure. This second edition of the strategy updates the initial strategy released … Read more

The Social Context of HIV Remission Amongst Infants: From Mississippi to South Africa and Back

Johanna Crane and Theresa Rossouw In March 2013 a group of physician-researchers made the startling announcement that a baby born in Mississippi had been ‘functionally cured’ of HIV (Persaud et al. 2013a). However, hopes that the discovery might indicate a … Read more

Stakeholder Engagement in HIV Cure Research: Normative and Practical Applications of Deliberative Approaches

Adriane Gelpi The rise of research to cure HIV has sparked calls for including stakeholder engagement as a part of this research. Stakeholders (including patients, community members, scientists, disease advocates, pharmaceutical representatives and government officials) have long played a pivotal … Read more

Social Media and HIV: A Systematic Review of Uses of Social Media in HIV Communication

Tamara Taggart, Mary E. Grewe, Donaldson F. Conserve, Catherine Gliwa, and Malika Roman Isler Background: Social media, including mobile technologies and social networking sites, are increasingly being used as part of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevention and treatment efforts. As … Read more

Employing Human Rights Frameworks to Define Government Obligations, Allocate Scarce Resources, and Engage Civil Society in Realizing Access to an HIV Cure

Benjamin Mason Meier, Adriane Gelpi, Matthew Kavanagh, Lisa Forman & Joseph Amon The HIV/AIDS pandemic has operationalized human rights for public health.  Through the progression of HIV/AIDS policy, institutions of global health governance have looked to human rights in framing … Read more

“Exceptionally Desirable Material”: Leprosy Patients and Researchers at the Dawn of the Sulfone Age

by Raul Necochea When sulfone drugs proved effective at arresting leprosy infection and even reversing some of the disease’s effects in the early 1940s, a new stream of research began to flow, enabled by patients’ cooperation with researchers. While acknowledging … Read more

IAS 2016 HIV Cure Research and Community Highlights

By Karine Dubé  The IAS 2016 meeting was held in Durban, South Africa in July 2016. The IAS 2016 Towards an HIV Cure Research Symposium included a social sciences panel for the first time and the main conference featured talks … Read more

2BeatHIV goes to TEDxDurham

By: Meredith Blumberg, 2BeatHIV Intern, UNC-CH Health Policy and Management Major I love watching TED Talks; I find it fascinating to learn about such varied, yet similarly inspirational, topics through short presentations. However, my past viewing of TED Talks had been … Read more

Perceptions of HIV cure among people living with HIV in Guangzhou, China: a qualitative study

By Qingyan Ma, PhD Bringing the voices of people living with HIV (PLHIV) into HIV cure research is critical to increase community engagement in clinical trial participation, enhance HIV treatment adherence, as well as improve psychosocial well-being of PLHIV. Therefore, … Read more

HIV Cure and Health Policy

by Joseph Tucker, MD, PhD and Adam Gilbertson, PhD HIV cure research has expanded by leaps and bounds in the past ten years. There is no doubt about the progress in terms of laboratory science and overarching strategies. But how … Read more

HIV and the “Truly Cured Child”

by Catie Gliwa, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles Raul Necochea, Dept of Social Medicine, UNC School of Medicine Disease cures do not happen overnight. In most cases, there is a long period of research and trials; … Read more

Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Co-Hosts a Successful Red for Cure HIV Forum

By: Jennifer Hendrix, 2BeatHIV/searcHIV intern, NCCU student The Chapel Hill-Carrboro Area Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and the 2BeatHIV Project co-hosted “Red for Cure”: A Forum on Black Women and HIV Cure on Saturday, February 27, 2016 … Read more

CROI 2016 HIV Cure Research and Community Highlights

by Karine Dube The CROI 2016 conference was held in Boston, MA from February 22 – 25, 2016. Relevant highlights include: The pre-CROI community HIV cure research workshop hosted on Sunday February 21, 2016: Dan Kuritkes presented on the tribulations … Read more

Reflections on an Ebola Virus: Implications for Cure

by Karine Dube Ebola infected over 28,000 people during the 2013 – 2016 outbreak in West Africa, including between 500 and 1,000 health care workers who died. There are over 10,000 Ebola virus disease survivors mainly in Guinea, Sierra Leone … Read more

Social media use for communication about HIV prevention and treatment: a systematic review

By MaryBeth Grewe, MPH; Tamara Taggart, MPH HIV is a common topic of discussion on many social media platforms, and increasingly, social media is being used as part of interventions promoting HIV prevention or treatment. We were aware of this … Read more

From “Cured” to “Cure”: Commentary on Cured: How the Berlin Patients Defeated HIV and Forever Changed Medical Science

by Qingyan Ma PhD Cured: How the Berlin Patients Defeated HIV and Forever Changed Medical Science by Nathalia Holt (click here) is the first monograph that detailed the personal struggle of the Berlin Patient, Timothy Brown, and his doctor, Gero … Read more

#2BeatHIV World AIDS Day News Coverage

The local Raleigh-based news source, The News and Observer, recently published an article about the then-upcoming December 1 World AIDS Day activities being hosted in Durham. A section of the searcHIV project, #2BeatHIV, was in attendance and hosted a celebration … Read more

7th International HIV Persistence Workshop in Miami, FL

By Karine Dubé The 7th International HIV Persistence Workshop on during Therapy occurred in Miami from December 8 – 11, 2015. This meeting started occurring bi-annually in 2003 and historically has been centered on HIV reservoirs. HIV reservoirs had been described … Read more

Towards Multidisciplinary HIV Cure Research

by Joseph D. Tucker, searcHIV co-PI HIV cure research is moving forward around the world, increasing the need for a comprehensive research agenda that goes beyond clinical and basic science fields. This urgent need motivated the International AIDS Society to … Read more

4 Facts to Know as you hear more about #charliesheen #mattlauer #HIV #HIVcure #2BeatHIV

by Allison Mathews, PhD, post-doc for searcHIV and 2BeatHIV News broke this morning announcing that Charlie Sheen has disclosed his status as HIV positive. We at the 2BeatHIV Project want you to know that we are proud of Charlie Sheen … Read more

Reflections from the 2015 AMWHO Conference and HIV Cure Implications

by Samantha Farley, searcHIV undergraduate intern For university students like myself, the American Mock World Health Organization (AMWHO) Conference provided our first immersion into the world of public health and policy. AMWHO was established at UNC Chapel Hill in 2014 … Read more

A TCM cure for malaria, a Nobel Prize, and an HIV cure

By Qingyan Ma, PhD October 5, 2015 was a remarkable day in the history of science in China. That day, a female Chinese researcher, Youyou Tu, was announced as one of the winners for the 2015 Nobel Prize for Physiology … Read more

HIV Remission: One Drug or Two?

by Dr. Joseph Tucker, searcHIV Principal Investigator The quest to achieve HIV remission has identified a wide range of potential candidates to decrease the size of the HIV reservoir, including broadly neutralizing antibodies, vaccines, traditional Chinese herbs, and gene editing … Read more

Viewpoints from IAS: Community Aspects of HIV Research

by Marie Theunissen, community advocate in Cape Town, South Africa A cure for HIV has been a hot topic for a while and, prior to the results of the Mississippi baby, expectations of a possible cure has been contemplated by … Read more

The 2015 Guangzhou HIV Cure Symposium

By Qingyan Ma PhD The China-US HIV Functional Cure Symposium held September 8-9, 2015 in Guangzhou, China marked the first academic exchange on the scientific research of HIV cure between the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and south … Read more

Why should we use social media to engage community members about HIV cure?

by Allison Matthews, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Fellow Recent technological advances in HIV research have reinvigorated the search for a cure. In order to ensure the equitable and successful implementation of a cure, we need to develop community engagement strategies that … Read more