Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have teamed up to find a lasting cure to HIV/AIDS once and for all; and while GSK will be putting $20 million on the table over a five-year period, the UNC will be contributing physical lab space for dozens of scientists on its campus.
In a joint statement released by the collaborators, GSK and UNC revealed they would be using the "shock and kill" approach to destroying HIV virus in the human body, and this approach entails exposing HIV virus in the cells to the influence of target drugs which boost immunity and kills off all traces of HIV virus in the human system.
According to local media reports, it is possible the two organizations form a new Chapel Hill research company which will be called Qura Therapeutics. It will be located at UNC's Marsico Hall, and there will be one board member each from UNC and GSK, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The partnership forged by the two organizations will create an HIV Cure Center where university academics and pharmaceutical research scientists will work together for the common good of all mankind in finding a permanent cure to HIV/AIDS.
According to Dr. Myron Cohen, head of UNC's infectious diseases program and a well-respected researcher, the collaboration is a "Manhattan Project-style effort to help find the cure for AIDS. The provocative idea is now mature enough for industry to say, 'We want to be in this and make the discovery.'"
With the partnership between a foremost research university and a global pharmaceutical company, it is hoped that the outcome of their collaboration would signal the end of HIV/AIDS, and restore hope to sufferers of the disease. It is however noted that the project may take up to 30 years before a definite breakthrough is made in the cure of HIV/AIDS.