Federal Project Grant Award Summary

Rockefeller University received a $2.373 million Project Grant award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) under the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.855), with an award date of June 3, 2026, and an ultimate completion date of May 31, 2030. The award supports investigator-initiated biomedical research focused on understanding the control of Human Immunodeficiency Virus type 1 (HIV-1) latency and reservoir persistence in primary cells. The research addresses a critical barrier to curative HIV-1 interventions—the establishment and maintenance of latent HIV-1 reservoirs in antiretroviral therapy (ART)-treated individuals that necessitate lifelong medication administration.

The primary deliverables include the development and expansion of a xenograft-based model system utilizing NSG mice to generate populations of human primary memory CD4+ T cells containing latent HIV-1 proviruses with reporter genes. Research activities encompass determining HIV-1 integration sites in active and latent cell populations, recovering and cultivating primary CD4+ T cell single-cell clones with unique HIV-1 integration sites, and investigating the stability, dynamics, and mechanisms of transitions between active and latent HIV-1 states. These research outputs are designed to advance scientific understanding of HIV-1 latency mechanisms and contribute to the development of potential curative interventions for HIV-1 infection.