Professor John Frater
Invited Lecture; British HIV Association 2017
Royal Society of Medicine - Lecture on HIV Cure
Facebook Live: RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2018 HIV Garden
RHS CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW 2021 - Finding Our Way: An NHS Tribute Garden - YouTube
World Economic Forum, Davos 2013 - Oxford Martin School IdeasLab
IAS Press Conference reported on HIVandhepatitis.com
BBC News Interview regarding the Mississippi Baby case
BBC World Service: A New Chapter in Fighting HIV
BBC Radio 4, Today Programme Interview
Colleges
John Frater
Professor of Infectious Diseases
HIV Reservoir and Cure Group
Antiretroviral therapy for the treatment of HIV infection is one of the great medical advances of the last century. It has changed HIV from a disease of almost certain death to a condition associated with a lack of illness, a normal lifespan, and the confidence that it cannot be passed on to sexual partners.
However, despite these breakthroughs, there is on-going stigma for many people living with HIV, and the potential for drug side-effects, interactions with other medicines, and the requirement to take medicine every day for life.
The two great outstanding challenges for HIV researchers are to find a vaccine that prevents infection and to find a cure for those who are infected.
My group works on the search for an HIV cure. We run a mixture of clinical trials and basic laboratory science. Our work is highly collaborative, working with international and national partners across the UK, Europe, the USA and Africa. Most importantly our work is focused on people and clinical outcomes - our aim is to advance the research that will one day find a cure for HIV
Our clinical trials include RIO - a $10 million venture with Rockefeller University, Imperial College and the Gates Foundation as well as RIVER, PITCH, SPARTAC and HEATHER - all ground-breaking studies helping to understand how and why HIV persists for life and trying to test ways to eradicate it. We also work closely with partners in the REACH Martin Delaney Collaboratory - an NIH funded program in the US, dedicated to HIV cure.
At the same time, we run an immunology laboratory that explores which immune responses might be key to a long-term cure for HIV as well as virology studies that look at the genetic code of the virus to see how that might help inform new therapies.
Recent publications
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Impact of antiretroviral therapy during primary HIV infection on T-cell immunity after treatment interruption.
Journal article
Tipoe T. et al, (2024), Eur J Immunol
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Obesity Differs from Diabetes Mellitus in Antibody and T Cell Responses Post COVID-19 Recovery.
Journal article
Ali M. et al, (2024), Clin Exp Immunol
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Rapid antiretroviral therapy in primary HIV-1 infection enhances immune recovery.
Journal article
Thornhill JP. et al, (2024), AIDS, 38, 679 - 688
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Gonadal androgens are associated with decreased type I interferon production by plasmacytoid dendritic cells and increased IgG titres to BNT162b2 following co-vaccination with live attenuated influenza vaccine in adolescents.
Journal article
Sampson OL. et al, (2024), Front Immunol, 15
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Prevalence of resistance-associated viral variants to the HIV-specific broadly neutralising antibody 10-1074 in a UK bNAb-naïve population.
Journal article
Zacharopoulou P. et al, (2024), Front Immunol, 15