Institut für HIV Forschung

***NEWS

The Institute for HIV Research is moving to the University Hospital Bonn and will be part of the Institute of Virology as of 1. Oktober 2019. With this move we will be able to offer and expand on HIV diagnostics and will be able to perform more clinical trials. We are looking forward to work with our new colleagues Prof. Dr. Jürgen Rockstroh and Dr. Christoph Bösecke. Regardless we will continue and expand our successful work with Dr. Stefan Esser.

About the Institute

The Institute for HIV Research (Deutsch: klicken Sie hier) in the University Hospital, Bonn seeks to improve the lives of HIV-positive individuals by investigating new avenues for HIV cure and HIV vaccine strategies. A particular focus is the role of CD4 T cell responses during HIV and other viral infections, with an eye towards how these responses may be manipulated for vaccine design. From classical helper roles to newly understood functions important for immune regulation, B cell development or even direct cytolysis, CD4 T cells are key to the orchestration of the immune system and represent a multi-faceted area of research.

Worldwide, there are over 35 million people infected with HIV and over 39 million that have already died from AIDS. Though the development of effective antiretroviral therapies have improved the lives of HIV-positive patients in the Western world, these treatments require daily administration resulting in a lifelong medical, economical, and psychological burden.Although a proper lifelong treatment can suppress the virus to below the limit of detection, decades of research and studies have yet to unearth a fully functional cure for the virus. To date, our best hopes of beating this pathogen is preventing infection by developing an effective vaccine that can be administered worldwide. Although we have only had limited success in creating such a vaccine, with continued help and determination we hope to reach this goal in the very near future.