EPIICAL

The EPIICAL General Assembly was held online and in person in Venice on 2-4 November 2022. It brought together 80 participants from 29 organisations from the EPIICAL consortium. Attendees came together to discuss, among other topics, highlights of the project as a clinical and experimental platform to evaluate therapeutic strategies for HIV remission and/or cure in children, updates in the treatment and management of paediatric HIV and the vision for EPIICAL in 2024 and beyond.

CARMA Global is an EPIICAL cross-sectional, multi-country, multi-site, low interventional study on children, adolescents and youth who started ART at three months or younger at least seven years ago and are currently on ART. The study aims to investigate viral reservoirs in these populations to better understand why ART is more effective in some patients than in others. In the social component, the study will collect data on attitudes towards HIV research to develop strategies to keep participants enrolled in clinical trials.

Abstract

Subphenotypes have been identified in several heterogeneous diseases. Having a specific subphenotype often has therapeutic implications or impacts disease progression. In this study, we aimed to assess if children with HIV may show subphenotypes according to clinical, virological and immunological features.

We collected data from 40 HIV+ children included in a cross-sectional multicentric study (CARMA Study, EPIICAL Consortium). All children commenced ART <2 years,

In 2016 the Early-treated Perinatally HIV-infected individuals: Improving Children’s Actual Life (EPIICAL) consortium began gathering scientists and clinicians specialising in paediatric HIV to work towards establishing new, scientific efforts on the early treatment of HIV to improve the lives of children and ultimately lead to the remission of HIV in children.

The main focus of the consortium was the development of a predictive platform to inform treatment strategies that would lead to HIV remission.

Authors: A Dalzini, G Ballin, S Dominguez-Rodriguez, P Rojo , M.R Petrara, C Foster, N Cotugno, A Ruggiero, E Nastouli, N Klein, S Rinaldi, S Pahwa, P Rossi, C Giaquinto, P Palma , A De Rossi1, and on behalf of EPIICAL Consortium

Published in: Journal of the International AIDS Society

Authors: Gärtner K, Byott M, Heaney J, Pagliuzza A, Spyer M.J Frampton D, Rossi A.D, Palmas P, Giaquinto C, Conejo P.R, Foster C,  Rossi P, Klein N, Chomont N, Nastouli E, for the EPIICAL consortium

Presented at: Keystone symposia on molecular and cellular biology

The CARMA team in the EPIICAL consortium have just published the article Early ART initiation during infancy preserves natural killer cells in young European adolescents living with HIV (CARMA cohort) in the Journal of International AIDS Society.

HIV infection causes pathological changes in the natural killer cell compartment, a type of white blood cell with enzymes that kill cells infected with a virus.

EPIICAL is proud to have presented four abstracts at the CROI conference this year, sharing updated information on viral decay and the immune response of children living with HIV who begin treatment early in life.

• EFFECT OF HIV ON IMMUNE ACTIVATION AND EXHAUSTION IN CD4 AND CD8 T CELLS IN INFANTS Stefano Rinaldi, Vinh B. Dinh, Suresh Pallikkuth, Lesley D.

Authors: Morris SE, Dziobek-Garrett L, Yates AJ and the EPIICAL consortium

Published in: BMC Bioinformatics 2020;21(1):52

Background HIV/AIDS is responsible for the deaths of one million people every year. Although mathematical modeling has provided many insights into the dynamics of HIV infection, there is still a lack of accessible tools for researchers unfamiliar with modeling techniques to apply them to their own clinical data.

Just published – data on T & B cell memory and T cell function in early-treated children in the Journal of Immunology and AIDS.
Antiretroviral treatment (if started at an early stage) is able to reduce the amount of HIV virus in a child’s body. EPIICAL is studying the characteristics of the immune response and the amount of HIV virus,

Today, November 20^th, is Universal Children’s Day. This year, we are celebrating in Cape Town, South Africa, where the EPIICAL 3rd General Assembly is being hosted. Universal Children’s Day is dedicated to the rights of the child, with one key aspect being the right for every child to access the highest standard of health. However, at the end of 2018, there were 37.9 million people living with HIV worldwide and,

We are delighted to report that the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Gabriel Touré in Mali (in liaison with Anne-Genevieve Marcelin, France) has enrolled its first patient in the key EPIICAL study, ‘EARTH’. This marks a new chapter in the study, with the scope of the cohort widening to include participants not only from South Africa and Mozambique, but also from the west African site in Bamako.

EARTH – Cohort of Early Anti-Retroviral Treatment in HIV-perinatally infected Children – is a prospective multicentre,

With the EPIICAL project being a hive of activity over the last year, we have collected a selection of contributions, stories and articles to bring you the very first edition of the EPIICAL newsletter! The issue contains an update on the evolution and recent progress in the HIV pediatric research coordinated by the project. We get to know the clinicians that locally sustain HIV programs and services with reports of their experience in the EARTH (‘Early Anti-Retroviral Treatment in HIV-infected Children’) study.

The annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) was held on 4-7 March 2019, at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle, Washington. CROI brings together top basic, translational, and clinical researchers from around the world to share the latest studies, important developments, and best research methods in the ongoing battle against HIV/AIDS and related infectious diseases.

At this year’s event,

Seattle is gearing up for the 2019 edition of CROI next week. Held at Washington State Convention Center on 4th-7th March, the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections is an important event in the Penta calendar, and in particular for the EPIICAL consortium, as it is an opportunity for members to discuss the latest developments pertaining to the project. Included on the agenda,

Held at the Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón on 14^th to 16^th November 2018, the 2^nd EPIICAL General Assembly welcomed around 50 scientists and healthcare professionals working together to establish new scientific efforts leading to HIV remission in children.

The 3-day meeting gave rise to highly fruitful discussion, at a time when the project has entered a very active phase,