Abstract
Purpose of Review
A therapy that might cure HIV is a very important goal for the 30–40 million people living with HIV. Chimeric antigen receptor T cells have recently had remarkable success against certain leukemias, and there are reasons to believe they could be successful for HIV. This manuscript summarizes the published research on HIV CAR T cells and reviews the current anti-HIV chimeric antigen receptor strategies.
Recent Findings
Research on anti-HIV chimeric antigen receptor T cells has been going on for at least the last 25 years. First- and second-generation anti-HIV chimeric antigen receptors have been developed. First-generation anti-HIV chimeric antigen receptors were studied in clinical trials more than 15 years ago, but did not have meaningful clinical efficacy.
Summary
There are some reasons to be optimistic about second-generation anti-HIV chimeric antigen receptor T cells, but they have not yet been tested in vivo.
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Acknowledgments
Dr. Wagner's work on anti-HIV CAR T cells is support by R01 AI118500 and UM1 AI126623.
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Thor A. Wagner declares a patent PCT/US2015/024876 pending to Seattle Children’s Hospital.
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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.
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This article is part of the Topical Collection on HIV Pathogenesis and Treatment
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Wagner, T.A. Quarter Century of Anti-HIV CAR T Cells. Curr HIV/AIDS Rep 15, 147–154 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11904-018-0388-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11904-018-0388-x