HIV treatments have made giant strides over the past three decades. While HIV-positive people today enjoy a life expectancy similar to that of the general population, treatments must be taken for life, since they only control the virus, they do not eliminate it. The main obstacle: viral reservoirs, which persist despite cutting-edge triple therapies.
Nicolas Chomont's work focuses on these famous reservoirs. Chomont joined the CRCHUM in January 2015 and is a specialist in immunology and virology who won the 2024 ACRV-CANFAR Excellence in Research Award,1 Basic Sciences category, for his contribution to advances in this field. In 2009, he identified memory T cells as the main cellular reservoirs of HIV. This discovery was published in Nature Medicine and has been cited over 1,000 times!
A race against the reservoirs
Several years ago, Nicolas Chomont and his team hypothesized that the sooner triple therapy is administered after infection, the better the chances of eliminating HIV from the infected person. The goal is to act before it hides in reservoirs and to prevent the onset of comorbidities. This theory was the subject of a study carried out in Thailand and published in 2023.
Alongside this ongoing work, they are pursuing another project in Thailand, which looks at the treatment of HIV-positive infants from their very first weeks of life. By following these children over the last ten years, they have seen that, by the age of seven, the majority no longer have reservoirs. “It gives us hope that they may be completely cured and have eliminated the reservoirs naturally,” says Chomont. “Since there is a rapid decrease in the number of reservoirs, we think they have a super immunological weapon that we have yet to identify. So, our goal is to understand what children have that adults don't. "
To carry out their research, the team is using the biosafety level 3 core facility, which is designed to handle high-risk pathogens, and for which Chomont is the scientific advisor. In addition, the cytometry core facility enables him to analyze immune system cells and identify HIV reservoirs.
Hope for a total cure
Since it is impossible for some HIV-positive people to start treatment within the first month of infection, it is essential to find other strategies to eradicate reservoirs. “My dream this year is to get closer to that goal,” states Chomont.
In fact, Chomont is leading a project called CanCURE as part of the HIV/AIDS and STBBI Research Initiative, which has just received $3.75M in funding over 5 years to develop an HIV cure protocol. 14 researchers will attempt to determine in which tissues viral reservoirs are preferentially located, by what mechanisms the virus manages to hide there and how to find it.
“Over the past two years, new cases of HIV transmission have increased by over 30% in Canada, and the global situation is even more serious. Yet there are few prevention campaigns to raise awareness of this disease. Research funding is therefore crucial,” concludes Chomont.
1 Each year, the Canadian Association for HIV Research (CAHR) and the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research (CANFAR) present awards of excellence to career researchers who are helping to improve the lives of people living with HIV or who are at risk of contracting the disease.
Immunopathology research theme highlights
May 2024
Dr. Océane Landon-Cardinal receives a $145,938 grant from Fonds de recherche du Québec – Santé (FRQS) for her research into scleromyositis.
July 2024
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) awards grants to researchers Petronela Ancuta and Naglaa Shoukry of $1,285,200 and $967,726 respectively.
In a study published in mBio, Andrés Finzi and his PhD student Mehdi Benlarbi demonstrate that low temperatures affect the transmission of new SARS-CoV2 variants.
August 2024
In a study published in Cell Reports, researcher Petronela Ancuta and her PhD student Jonathan Dias demonstrate that retinoic acid derived from vitamin A helps HIV replication in macrophages.
September 2024
In the journal iScience, Petronela Ancuta and her student Augustine Fert demonstrate that an antidiabetic drug could accelerate the immune system's depletion of HIV reservoirs.
October 2024
In the journal Nature Communications, researcher Sophie Petropoulos' team publishes an atlas of small non-coding RNAs involved in human preimplantation development, a valuable resource for improving assisted reproduction techniques.
February 2025
Researcher Andrés Finzi receives $2M in funding from CIHR as part of the HIV/AIDS and STBBI Research Initiative.
In a study published in Developmental Cell, researcher Greg FitzHarris' team shows how the early mouse embryo eliminates defective or unnecessary cells in pairs.
March 2025
Researcher Petronela Ancuta receives $200,000 in CIHR funding as part of the Catalyst Grant: Biomedical Research for HIV/AIDS and STBBI competition.
In the journal Nature Medicine, researcher Sophie Petropoulos and her colleagues at the Karolinska Institutet publish a study enabling a better understanding and treatment of polycystic ovary syndrome.
This text is taken from our 2024-2025 Activity Report
Toward an HIV-Free world
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