title: The EPIICAL project: an emerging global collaboration to investigate immunotherapeutic strategies in HIV-infected children.
abstract: The EPIICAL (Early-treated Perinatally HIV-infected Individuals: Improving Children's Actual Life with Novel Immunotherapeutic Strategies) project arises from the firm belief that perinatally infected children treated with suppressive antiretroviral therapy (ART) from early infancy represent the optimal population model in which to study novel immunotherapeutic strategies aimed at achieving ART-free remission. This is because HIV-infected infants treated within 2-3 months of life have a much reduced viral reservoir size, and rarely show HIV-specific immunity but preserve normal immune development. The goal of EPIICAL is the establishment of an international collaboration to develop a predictive platform using this model to select promising HIV therapeutic vaccine candidates, leading to prioritisation or deprioritisation of novel immunotherapeutic strategies. To establish this platform, the EPIICAL Consortium aims to: develop predictive models of virological and immunological dynamics associated with response to early ART and to treatment interruption using available data from existing cohorts/studies of early-treated perinatally HIV-infected children; optimise methodologies to better characterise immunological, virological and genomic correlates/profiles associated with viral control; test novel immunotherapeutic strategies usingin vivoproof-of-concept (PoC) studies with the aim of inducing virological, immunological and transcriptomic correlates/profiles equivalent to those defined by the predictive model. This approach will strengthen the capacity for discovery, development and initial testing of new therapeutic vaccine strategies through the integrated efforts of leading international scientific groups, with the aim of improving the health of HIV-infected individuals.
authors.affiliation: University Department of Pediatrics, Unit of Immune and Infectious Diseases, Children's Hospital Bambino Gesù, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Palma
authors.affiliation: Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, London, UK.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Foster
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Hospital 12 de Octubre, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Rojo
authors.affiliation: University Department of Pediatrics, Unit of Immune and Infectious Diseases, Children's Hospital Bambino Gesù, Rome, Italy ; Chair of Pediatrics, Department of Systems Medicine, University of Rome 'Tor Vergata', Italy.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zangari
authors.affiliation: Institute of Infection, Immunity & Inflammation, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Yates
authors.affiliation: University Department of Pediatrics, Unit of Immune and Infectious Diseases, Children's Hospital Bambino Gesù, Rome, Italy ; Chair of Pediatrics, Department of Systems Medicine, University of Rome 'Tor Vergata', Italy.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Cotugno
authors.affiliation: Institute of Child Health, University College London, London, UK.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Klein
authors.affiliation: Program in Molecular Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School Worcester, MA, USA.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Luzuriaga
authors.affiliation: Miami Center for AIDS Research Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL, USA.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pahwa
authors.affiliation: Department of Virology, University College London Hospitals, London, UK.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Nastouli
authors.affiliation: MRC Clinical Trials Unit, London, UK.
authors.forename: D M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Gibb
authors.affiliation: NYU School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Borkowsky
authors.affiliation: University Department of Pediatrics, Unit of Immune and Infectious Diseases, Children's Hospital Bambino Gesù, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bernardi
authors.affiliation: Pierre et Marie Curie University and Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris, France.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Calvez
authors.affiliation: University Department of Pediatrics, Unit of Immune and Infectious Diseases, Children's Hospital Bambino Gesù, Rome, Italy ; Chair of Pediatrics, Department of Systems Medicine, University of Rome 'Tor Vergata', Italy.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Manno
authors.affiliation: University Department of Pediatrics, Unit of Immune and Infectious Diseases, Children's Hospital Bambino Gesù, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Nadia
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Mora
authors.affiliation: INSERM SC10-US019 Clinical Trials and Infectious Diseases, Villejuif Paris, France.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Compagnucci
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wahren
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular ImmunoBiology, Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañon, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Má
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Muñoz-Fernández
authors.affiliation: Section of Oncology and Immunology, Department of Surgery, Oncology and Gastroenterology-DiSCOG, University of Padova & Istituto Oncologico Veneto(IOV)-IRCCS, Padova Padova, Italy.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: De Rossi
authors.affiliation: US Military HIV Research Program, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and Henry M Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Maryland, USA.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ananworanich
authors.affiliation: Africa Centre, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pillay
authors.affiliation: Department of Women's and Child's Health, Paediatric Infectious Diseases Unit, University of Padova and PENTA Foundation, Italy.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Giaquinto
authors.affiliation: University Department of Pediatrics, Unit of Immune and Infectious Diseases, Children's Hospital Bambino Gesù, Rome, Italy ; Chair of Pediatrics, Department of Systems Medicine, University of Rome 'Tor Vergata', Italy.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Rossi
keywords: HIV; children; early treated; immunotherapies; therapeutic vaccines