PORT ST. LUCIE — A scientist who is moving his team of researchers from Montreal to a new institute in Port St. Lucie announced Monday that he has helped uncover a possible method for eradicating HIV from the human body.

Within five to seven years, Rafick-Pierre Sekaly hopes to use the discovery as a platform for clinical trials on residents in St. Lucie County, which in 2006 had the highest rate of HIV and AIDS cases among black residents.

Sekaly, who started this spring as scientific director of VGTI Florida — the East Coast branch of the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute at Oregon Health & Science University — pointed out that existing anti-retroviral treatments for HIV only limit the progression of the infection. They don’t eradicate the disease.
The new research could help doctors go a step beyond that, by identifying specific cells where HIV persists, he said during a press conference.

The research suggests that the virus could be eliminated with a dual approach: using medicine that targets viral replication of HIV in the body in combination with drugs that prevent infected memory T-cells from dividing.

Memory T cells are part of the body’s immune system, so antiviral treatments that stop HIV in other parts of the body don’t work in them.

The work was published Sunday in the online version of the journal Nature Medicine and will be published in an upcoming print version of the journal.

The next step is to begin testing the proposed treatment method using animals — including some of the thousands of primates at VGTI’s headquarters in Portland, Ore

Eventually, clinical trials would involve hundreds of people, Sekaly said. He hopes to use as many as possible from St. Lucie County in order to speed the process.

“Recruiting from here is going to be very important for logistical reasons,” he said.

Local HIV and AIDS activists hope the potential breakthrough have an impact on St. Lucie County, which in 2006 had the highest rate of the disease among black residents.

Developments such as Sekaly’s work help people overcome fear of the disease, said Dawn Penny-Jones, an HIV/AIDS program coordinator for the St. Lucie County Health Department.

“I think this will encourage more people to get tested,” she said.

VGTI announced in January that Sekaly would join the new Port St. Lucie branch of the institute, bringing about 36 researchers with him from Montreal, where research money is more difficult to come by.

The state awarded VGTI Florida $60 million last year to open a campus in Port St. Lucie, and the city matched it with $53 million in incentives. Part of the state money is being used to seed Sekaly’s research team.

Also Monday, VGTI announced that it has acquired 8 acres at the Tradition development, where it will build 105,000 square feet of laboratories and offices.

The institute hopes to complete the lab in the summer of 2011.

Asked if he thought a cure for AIDS could emerge from work performed in St. Lucie County, Sekaly said:
“I think it’s better than anywhere else in the world right now.”

Port St. Lucie’s next biotech institute is one step closer to reality.

Oregon Health & Science University’s Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute signed a deal this month to design and build its new $30 million laboratory in the Tradition development west of Interstate 95.

The institute tapped Baltimore-based Whiting Turner Contracting Co. to oversee construction of the 105,000 square feet of laboratories and offices. The building is on target to be completed in May 2011, said Andrew Favata, vice president for Tradition’s developer, Core Communities LLC.

VGTI Florida, as the local campus has been dubbed, will be built on eight acres at Core Communities’ Florida Center for Innovation at Tradition, a fledgling research park that’s now home to another biotech outfit, the Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies. (more…)

By EVE SAMPLES
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
PORT ST. LUCIE — One of the world’s leading HIV-vaccine development teams is moving from Montreal to Port St. Lucie.

Rafick-Pierre Sékaly of the University of Montreal and his group of more than 30 scientists will relocate to the city in the next few months to work at VGTI Florida, the East Coast branch of Oregon Health & Science University’s Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute, the institute announced today.

VGTI accepted $60 million in state incentives last year to open a campus in Port St. Lucie.
Construction of VGTI’s 105,000-square-foot facility is expected to start in the coming months. Meanwhile, Sékaly and his team will work from the third floor of the Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies, which just moved into its new building at the Tradition development. (more…)