According to the International Aids Vaccine Initiative’s website “IAVI is a global not-for-profit, public-private partnership whose mission is to ensure the development of a preventive HIV vaccine for use throughout the world”. In addition to funding IAVI’s own scientific team, they offer grants to support selected HIV research projects.
IAVI has been working to develop vaccines that produce neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) against HIV to prevent infections and the development of AIDS. Currently, there are no vaccines that produce NAbs against HIV but naturally occurring Nabs were discovered in an HIV infected patient who did not develop AIDS. Although the target of these HIV NAbs was identified as a protein on the surface of the virus, the protein is too unstable to use in a vaccine and strategies to stabilize it have been unsuccessful.
IAVI contacted NineSigma to help identify a population of scientists who specialize in protein stabilization but who may not have considered working on AIDS related research problems in the past. This type of project is directly suited to NineSigma’s ability to find solutions from areas outside our client’s primary focus. We worked with Dr. Hansi Dean at IAVI to draft an RFP entitled “Engineering Stable Proteins”, which focused on protein modification rather than HIV to attract the attention of a new group of protein scientists. More than 30 proposals were submitted from an international group of protein researchers, and IAVI assembled a committee to review and rank the proposals. Preliminary funding decisions have been made, and we are looking forward to making a full announcement of the results shortly.