HIV/AIDS Research Yields Dividends Across Medical Fields

Nearly Four Decades of Study has Propelled Advances in Heart Disease, Hepatitis, Cancer and Other Diseases

August 28, 2018

NIAID Vaccine Research Center scientist uses pipetting tool under fume hood in lab.

Credit: NIAID

NIAID Vaccine Research Center scientist working in lab.

Since the first cases of AIDS were reported in the United States 37 years ago, the National Institutes of Health has invested more than $69 billion in the understanding, treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS. Beyond the development of life-saving medications and innovative prevention modalities, such research has led to numerous advances outside the HIV field, according to a new commentary from experts at NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

Writing in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., and his colleague Tara A. Schwetz, Ph.D., note that researchers have gleaned critical insights from the devastation HIV can unleash on the immune system. Scientists now better understand the vital role of CD4+ T cells—immune cells that HIV selectively infects and destroys—in thwarting other infectious diseases and certain cancers. Studying the course of HIV infection has furthered understanding of persistent immune activation and inflammation that can appear in other diseases. For example, researchers observed that inflammation led to a heightened risk of heart disease in people living with HIV, prompting further inquiry into the role of inflammation in heart disease regardless of a person’s HIV status. HIV research also has provided insight into other HIV-associated comorbidities, including kidney disease, cancer and tuberculosis.

The HIV/AIDS research model has proven that cross-fertilization of ideas, innovation, and research progress can lead to unforeseen and substantial advantages for a variety of other disease. – Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. & Tara A. Schwetz, Ph.D., NIAID

Credit: NIAID

Excerpt from a Journal of Infectious Diseases commentary from Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., NIAID Director, and Tara A. Schwetz, Ph.D., NIAID Strategic Planning & Evaluation Branch Chief

Research focused on HIV treatments and vaccines also has reaped wide-ranging benefits. Efforts to develop antiretroviral therapy for HIV provided a model for targeted drug development that has been applied to the discovery of other antiviral drugs, such as direct-acting antivirals that can cure hepatitis C virus infection. Techniques developed for the discovery of broadly neutralizing antibodies and candidate vaccines inducing these antibodies against HIV are being explored to combat other viral diseases such as Ebola, Zika and influenza. In addition, studies focused on the molecular structure of HIV have ushered in an era of structure-based vaccine design.

These and other examples, the experts conclude, indicate that HIV/AIDS research has had and continues to have a far-reaching impact well beyond this single pathogen.

ARTICLE:
TA Schwetz and AS Fauci. The Extended Impact of HIV/AIDS Research. Journal of Infectious Diseases DOI: 10.1093/infdis/jiy441 (2018).

WHO:
Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., NIAID director and co-author of the editorial, is available for comment.