Research and Advanced Education
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funds Portuguese research project on HIV/AIDS
João Gonçalves project, from Faculdade de Farmácia and IMM, won a Grand Challenges Exploration Award
The researcher João Gonçalves received a Grand Challenges Exploration Grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. João Gonçalves is Professor at Faculdade de Farmácia de Lisboa and researcher at Instituto de Medicina Molecular, and will develop therapeutic nanoparticles to eliminate HIV-1 viruses from infected organisms.
Gonçalves’ project Nanotechnology against viral latency: Sensor strategies to eliminate HIV-1 infected cells is one of the 85 grants announced by the Gates Foundation in the sixth funding round of Grand Challenges Explorations, an initiative to help scientists around the world explore bold and largely unproven ways to improve health in developing countries. The initiative is highly competitive, receiving more than 2500 proposals in this round.
HIV-1 virus can remain latent inside infected organisms for several years, integrated in the genome of certain cell types of the immune system, such as T lymphocytes. Presently, it is not know any form to eradicate HIV-1 viruses from infected individuals.
The Portuguese researcher and his team at Faculdade de Farmácia / Instituto de Medicina Molecular in Lisbon, Portugal, will now design and develop therapeutic nanoparticles aimed at specifically recognizing - and destroying – HIV-1 infected cells (where the virus has integrated the cells’ genome).
The project will have funding of USD 100,000 during 12 months. This is a basic research project, developed in the laboratory, with the possibility of further funding of up to USD 1million, if the research project demonstrates initial success. In this eventual second phase, the nanoparticles will be produced in large scale and efficacy and security tests will be developed.
João Gonçalves is the second resercher from Instituto de Medicina Molecular to be funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2010, Miguel Prudêncio won Grand Challenges Exploration funding to develop a vaccine against Malária.
The researcher João Gonçalves received a Grand Challenges Exploration Grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. João Gonçalves is Professor at Faculdade de Farmácia de Lisboa and researcher at Instituto de Medicina Molecular, and will develop therapeutic nanoparticles to eliminate HIV-1 viruses from infected organisms.
Gonçalves’ project Nanotechnology against viral latency: Sensor strategies to eliminate HIV-1 infected cells is one of the 85 grants announced by the Gates Foundation in the sixth funding round of Grand Challenges Explorations, an initiative to help scientists around the world explore bold and largely unproven ways to improve health in developing countries. The initiative is highly competitive, receiving more than 2500 proposals in this round.
HIV-1 virus can remain latent inside infected organisms for several years, integrated in the genome of certain cell types of the immune system, such as T lymphocytes. Presently, it is not know any form to eradicate HIV-1 viruses from infected individuals.
The Portuguese researcher and his team at Faculdade de Farmácia / Instituto de Medicina Molecular in Lisbon, Portugal, will now design and develop therapeutic nanoparticles aimed at specifically recognizing - and destroying – HIV-1 infected cells (where the virus has integrated the cells’ genome).
The project will have funding of USD 100,000 during 12 months. This is a basic research project, developed in the laboratory, with the possibility of further funding of up to USD 1million, if the research project demonstrates initial success. In this eventual second phase, the nanoparticles will be produced in large scale and efficacy and security tests will be developed.
João Gonçalves is the second resercher from Instituto de Medicina Molecular to be funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2010, Miguel Prudêncio won Grand Challenges Exploration funding to develop a vaccine against Malária.