13 February 2018 - - The National Institutes of Health has awarded Cleveland, Ohio-based Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) and Richmond, California-based genomic therapies specialist Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: SGMO) a USD 11m grant from for a planned study of gene-edited T cells designed to eradicate persistent HIV infection in patients receiving anti-retroviral therapy, a combination of medicines that slows the rate at which HIV replicates, the company said.
The grant will fund a clinical trial to test the hypothesis that treating patients with their own gene-edited T cells may lead to a sustained increase in T cell counts and eradication of latent HIV reservoirs.
Currently available treatments do not completely cure infected individuals due to the persistence of a latent HIV virus population. As a result, if treatment is stopped, the dormant virus rapidly emerges and reestablishes the infection.
Rafick-Pierre Sekaly, PhD at CWRU School of Medicine will be the principal investigator of the new study. He is a leading scientists in AIDS research, human immunology, and immunotherapy.
Sangamo Therapeutics will be contributing materials, equipment, and manufacturing expertise for the study, which is expected to begin in 2018.
Sangamo Therapeutics is focused on translating ground-breaking science into genomic therapies that transform patients' lives using the company's industry leading platform technologies in genome editing, gene therapy, gene regulation and cell therapy.