Viral Reservoirs: Where does HIV hide?

Nicolas Chomont, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Microbiology, Infectiology and Immunology
Université de Montréal
University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre (CRCHUM)

This conference is hosted by Nathalie Labrecque, PhD. This conference is part of the 2024-2025 IRCM conference calendar.

About this conference
Antiretroviral therapy blocks HIV replication and extends the life of people with HIV (PHIV). However, it does not eliminate the virus and should be taken for life. In addition to persistent stigma, lifelong treatment entails both health risks to PHIV and a significant economic burden to society. As such, there is a desperate need to develop a cure for HIV infection. 

HIV persists in cells called “HIV reservoirs” for the lifetime of PHIV. Reservoirs are the reason why antiretroviral therapy should be taken for life. In our quest to find a cure for HIV infection, there is a need to either completely eliminate these reservoirs or reduce their size to allow the immune system to control them naturally (like herpes viruses).

From more than 25 years of research on HIV reservoirs, it is now clear that the size of the HIV reservoir slowly decays with time on therapy, but this decay is too slow to eliminate the virus during a lifetime: HIV hides in cells that can proliferate or persist in deep tissues such as lymph nodes and bone marrow. We developed a novel assay that allows us to visualize and characterize single infected cells in blood and tissues from PHIV.

Our goal is to identify the immunological and virological features of these cells. In particular, we focus on 1) the nature of the cells in which HIV persists to identify mechanisms that lead to their persistence and proliferation and 2) the nature of the virus to understand how it escapes recognition from the immune system. By performing these studies, we believe we will have a better understanding of the cellular and viral factors that should be targeted to eliminate HIV reservoirs. 

About Nicolas Chomont
Dr Nicolas Chomont is an Associate professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Université de Montréal – CHUM Research Center. He obtained his PhD in medical virology at Pierre et Marie Curie University in Paris where he studied the interactions between HIV and the genital mucosa. From 2004 to 2009, he joined the Université de Montréal for his post-doctoral training. During this time, he described subsets of memory CD4 T cells that contribute to the persistence of HIV in individuals receiving antiretroviral therapy. He pursued his research as a principal investigator at the Vaccine & Gene Therapy Institute of Florida to characterize these reservoirs. Since 2015, at the Université de Montréal, Dr Chomont is overseeing studies to unravel the molecular mechanisms involved in HIV latency and to develop novel therapeutic strategies aimed at eradicating HIV. His work focuses on the immunological mechanisms that are involved in the persistence of HIV infected cells, and particularly on the role of T cell proliferation in that process. 

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