CHAARM project: the research on new and promising anti-HIV microbicides
18 February 2010
Belgium
The project CHAARM was officially launched last week in Rome with an introduction and congratulatory speech made by the European Commission Scientific officer Ms. Alessandra Martini, Unit of Infectious Diseases, DG Research. The project was indeed scored 14/15 in the evaluation summary report and it is the only one funded by the FP7 on microbicides at this stage.
The expectations are therefore very high and the kick-off meeting set the scientific basis of this 5 year cooperation of 31 partners from 8 European Union countries and Switzerland, Ukraine, South Africa and the United States.
In the HIV prevention field microbicides are compounds or substances that could be used vaginally or rectally to reduce a person's risk of HIV infection and possibly other sexually transmitted infections. Even if condoms remain the most effective way of stopping sexually transmitted HIV many people do not have the power to avoid sexual contact with partners who may be infected. Microbicides have the potential to empower many individuals to protect themselves against HIV.
CHAARM project will provide a rational basis for development of new inhibitors in addition to knowledge of the structure of HIV-1, the cause of the majority of HIV infections globally. The project will evaluate for the first time the potential for commercial protease inhibitors to act as HIV microbicides, either singly or in combination. If the concept is valid, the distinct mechanism of microbicidal action will be useful in developing combination microbicides with increased breadth of coverage against divergent HIV-1 strains, reduced probability of transmitting viruses resistant to any single inhibitor, and possible microbicide synergy, creating dose-sparing effects.
CHAARM consortium involves internationally recognized research centres in HIV investigation, universities, medical institutions and RTD experienced on the field. A number of these organizations have collaborated previously as part of the EMPRO (European Microbicides project) or TrIoH (Targeting Replication and Integration of HIV) FP6 projects and are currently involved in the Europrise network or Thinc project (Targeting HIV Integration Co-factors, targeting cellular proteind during nuclear import or integration of HIV). The project therefore follows a collaborative strategy reinforcing the need for a coherent, multi-disciplinary approach to maximize efforts in developing effective HIV microbicide products.
The potential of the research that will be carried out will place European researchers at the forefront of microbicide development. CHAARM work programme includes training workshops on microbicide research for PhD students.
The expectations are therefore very high and the kick-off meeting set the scientific basis of this 5 year cooperation of 31 partners from 8 European Union countries and Switzerland, Ukraine, South Africa and the United States.
In the HIV prevention field microbicides are compounds or substances that could be used vaginally or rectally to reduce a person's risk of HIV infection and possibly other sexually transmitted infections. Even if condoms remain the most effective way of stopping sexually transmitted HIV many people do not have the power to avoid sexual contact with partners who may be infected. Microbicides have the potential to empower many individuals to protect themselves against HIV.
CHAARM project will provide a rational basis for development of new inhibitors in addition to knowledge of the structure of HIV-1, the cause of the majority of HIV infections globally. The project will evaluate for the first time the potential for commercial protease inhibitors to act as HIV microbicides, either singly or in combination. If the concept is valid, the distinct mechanism of microbicidal action will be useful in developing combination microbicides with increased breadth of coverage against divergent HIV-1 strains, reduced probability of transmitting viruses resistant to any single inhibitor, and possible microbicide synergy, creating dose-sparing effects.
CHAARM consortium involves internationally recognized research centres in HIV investigation, universities, medical institutions and RTD experienced on the field. A number of these organizations have collaborated previously as part of the EMPRO (European Microbicides project) or TrIoH (Targeting Replication and Integration of HIV) FP6 projects and are currently involved in the Europrise network or Thinc project (Targeting HIV Integration Co-factors, targeting cellular proteind during nuclear import or integration of HIV). The project therefore follows a collaborative strategy reinforcing the need for a coherent, multi-disciplinary approach to maximize efforts in developing effective HIV microbicide products.
The potential of the research that will be carried out will place European researchers at the forefront of microbicide development. CHAARM work programme includes training workshops on microbicide research for PhD students.