PIPages
Labs

Harris Goldstein

Albert Einstein College of Medicine, NY·Microbiology & Immunology

Antiretroviral drugs can push HIV down to undetectable levels, but they cannot clear it. A small pool of infected cells stays quiet, or latent, and when treatment stops these cells wake up and seed the infection again.

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Fields

Microbiology & Immunology

Medicine & Clinical Research

Genetics

Topics

latent reservoir

antiretroviral therapy

ART-free remission

Grants
4 known grants, through May 2029

What they work on

  1. Build and optimize injectable lentiviral vector particles retargeted to CD3, a marker on T cells, so they transduce T cells directly inside the body and turn them into anti-HIV duoCAR-T cells without lab manufacturing.
  2. Compare CD3-targeted versus peptide-MHC conjugate-targeted vectors for their ability to generate duoCAR-T cells that suppress HIV in cell culture and in animal models, where each receptor binds a different conserved patch of the viral entry protein gp120.
  3. Develop CD3-targeted vectors that instruct T cells in the body to secrete broadly neutralizing antibodies, which block many HIV strains, at therapeutic levels.
  4. Test whether gp120-bearing exosomes or cytokine complexes combining interleukin-15 with a TGF-beta inhibitor, or interleukin-7, -15 and -21, expand duoCAR-T cells and boost their anti-HIV activity.
  5. Convert cytomegalovirus-specific CD8 T cells, which stay potent and even expand over decades, into HIV-targeting CAR-T cells or anti-HIV T cells after expanding them with synTacs, infusible scaffolds pairing peptide-MHC with costimulatory signals.
  6. Redesign the synTac to link cytomegalovirus peptide-MHC, gp120-binding modules and costimulatory ligands in one molecule, testing whether it both activates and redirects these durable T cells onto HIV-infected cells.
  7. Determine which costimulatory signals, delivered by synTacs, generate the CD8 T cells and CAR-T cells best able to eliminate latently infected cells after they reactivate.
  8. Coordinate cross-institutional HIV research teams and service cores in biomarkers, behavioral and implementation science, and clinical and translational science, and run pilot awards that mentor new HIV investigators in New York City.

More about the research

In most people with HIV, the immune system is too weak or too worn down to catch and kill those reawakened cells. Work in this lab centers on arming the immune system so it can do that job on its own, using engineered T cells, engineered antibodies, and injectable gene-delivery tools, with the goal of remission that lasts without daily drugs. A separate center grant supports HIV research across New York City institutions.

Why it matters

Lifelong daily antiretroviral therapy keeps HIV in check but never clears it, and stopping treatment brings the virus back. The engineered T cell, antibody and injectable gene-delivery approaches here could eventually give people with HIV durable control without daily drugs, and an injectable vector would sidestep the expensive cell-manufacturing logistics that put current cell therapies out of reach in the regions with the most infections. The center grant supports prevention, treatment and cure research in a city that is still a focus of the U.S. epidemic.

Known grants

From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.

Developing and evaluating cell-specific lentivectors capable of selective in vivo generation of anti-HIV T cells to cure HIV

NIH · Jun 2024 – May 2029

Amplifying and Redirecting CMV-specific CD8 T cells to provide sustained control of HIV infection

NIH · Jun 2022 – May 2027

ERC Einstein Rockefeller CUNY Center for AIDS Research

NIH · May 2017 – Apr 2027

Closest labs

Dennis Hartigan-O'Connor

University of California-Davis, CA·Microbiology & Immunology

Test whether partial-agonist IL-10 cytokines combined with mRNA vaccination can make HIV-specific T-cell responses unusually durable in macaques, including CXCR5+ follicular T cells that enter lymph-node sites where antibody-producing B cells mature.

Matthew Gardner

Emory University, GA·Microbiology & Immunology

Test whether co-delivering an AAV vector encoding rhesus macaque PD-L1, a protein that engages the T-cell brake receptor PD-1, sustains blood levels of the HIV broadly neutralizing antibody 10-1074 high enough to protect macaques from repeated low-dose SHIV challenge.

Dan Kaufman

University of California-San Diego, CA·Microbiology & Immunology

Test whether virus-like particles carrying DARPin or scFv targeting proteins deliver mRNA selectively to T cells, NK cells or macrophages, first in cell lines and then in primary human immune cells.

The school

Albert Einstein College of Medicine: 21 labs on PI Pages, $361M a year on research, 36 research doctorates a year.

More about Albert Einstein College of Medicine

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