amfAR (the Foundation for AIDS Research) has announced grants totaling $1.2 million in support of researchers targeting the persistent HIV reservoir, which the foundation describes as the main barrier to a cure.

While many people living with HIV and taking antiretroviral therapy consistently maintain low to undetectable levels of virus, in most cases halting treatment will cause their HIV to come back. Eliminating the HIV reservoir may be the key to HIV cure research. The grants were awarded to Michael Peluso (University of California, San Francisco), Adam Spivak (University of Utah, Salt Lake City), and Yiming Yin (Boston Children’s Hospital).

“It’s no coincidence that two of these studies will test the effectiveness of FDA-approved cancer treatments for their anti-HIV activity,” said Jeffrey Laurence, amfAR senior scientific consultant and a professor of medicine in the division of hematology-oncology at Weill Cornell Medical College. “Time and again, we see parallels between HIV and cancer, and we hope the successful outcomes of these studies will lead to clinical benefits for people living with HIV.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/Motortion)