People living with HIV drive research

It’s all about people

Making new discoveries about HIV, including where it hides in the body during treatment and how it might be defeated, is a long process. Progress relies on the ongoing engagement of people living with HIV who volunteer to participate in research studies. Here is an interview with Geoff, one of the many people living with HIV in Australia who generously sign up to participate in HIV-related research trials every year. This is what moves the field forward.

Video: Sarah Fisher, University of Melbourne

About leukapheresis

Leukapheresis is a strategy for getting large numbers of white blood cells from participants without dramatically affecting their wellbeing. A huge volume of blood would be needed to get the same number of white blood cells from standard blood donations. In leukapheresis, large volumes of blood are taken, but the white blood cells are removed using an automated cell separator, and the rest of the blood is then put back. The whole process takes 3-4 hours and gives researchers generous amounts of starting material for further investigations. The white blood cells collected are less than 5% of all the white blood cells in the body and are usually replaced within 24 hours.

The Leukapheresis trial

Researchers at the Doherty Institute and the Alfred Hospital are doing a detailed study of virus in people with well-controlled HIV. Treatment does not completely remove all virus from the body, and this remaining (or latent) virus can re-emerge if treatment is stopped. Researchers are looking to see which cell types contain this latent virus, whether the virus is infectious and if there are ways to get rid of it completely. Because HIV is usually present in only a small number of blood cells in people on successful treatment, these types of studies need large numbers of cells to begin with.

Click here for more details on the leukapheresis trial.

Click here for details of other current cure-related studies in Australia