Wistar Institute is opening a new center dedicated to HIV research

Wistar Institute is investing $24 million to open a new center dedicated to researching how to equip the immune system to fight HIV by developing new treatment options, including potentially a vaccine.

The HIV Cure and Viral Diseases Center will be located at 3675 Market St., marking the 130-year-old research institution’s first offices outside its Spruce Street headquarters in West Philadelphia.

Wistar was founded in 1892 as the nation’s first independent biomedical research institution. It is designated by the National Cancer Institute as a cancer research institute, and also specializes in vaccine development and infectious disease.

About 1.2 million people in the United States and more than 39 million worldwide have HIV, a virus that attacks the immune system and prevents it from fighting off disease. With daily medication, many people with HIV can live virtually symptom-free, with undetectable viral loads.

Medical advancements over the past 40 years have led to a decline in deaths and new diagnoses. But the disease remains an international health threat with no known cure.

“An AIDS vaccine has been very elusive, which means we probably don’t know everything there is to know about the disease,” said Dario Altieri, Wistar’s CEO. “The time is now to really bring together everything that has been achieved so far and make that additional leap.”

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Altieri envisions Wistar’s new center as a “classroom for innovative therapies and vaccines” with 25,000 square feet of office and laboratory space at 3675 Market St., a bioscience hub by Wexford Science + Technology.

The new center will bring together Wistar’s existing, National Institutes of Health-supported HIV research program with international experts. Wistar plans to hire between four and six more scientists for the center.

Researchers will focus on treatments and potential cures that arm the immune system against the virus.

Immunotherapy has emerged as among the most promising approaches to treating cancer and disease. Wistar and other research hubs have honed in on the idea of training the immune system to attack disease as a highly personalized treatment.

Altieri said the center’s research on HIV could prove useful for managing other viral outbreaks or future pandemics.