The Wistar Institute in University City has unveiled its first expansion in more than 130 years — a new center focused on finding a cure for HIV and other viral diseases.
The expansion comes at a critical time for biomedical research. Clinical trials show promise toward an HIV vaccine, scientists say, but funding for HIV vaccine research is simultaneously being gutted by the Trump administration.
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The Wistar Institute, the nation's first nonprofit biomedical research institute, seeks to solve challenges in the field of cancer, immunology and infectious diseases. It announced its plans to expand from its headquarters at 3601 Spruce St. last July.
The institute's HIV Cure and Viral Disease Center, at 3675 Market St., includes more than 25,000 square feet of research facilities and laboratories, where its mission to find a cure for HIV will be carried out. It opened June 2.
"I am confident we will advance towards an HIV cure in my lifetime," said Dr. Luis Montaner, the center's founding director and executive vice president of the Wistar Institute. "With the launch of this center, Wistar makes a clear and bold statement that the time to get us to an HIV cure is now."
An estimated 39 million people worldwide and 1.2 million Americans have HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Lifelong medications can keep the virus from replicating, but they do not rid people of the virus entirely.
HIV's ability to mutate have made it extremely difficult to develop a vaccine. But researchers believe they are on the brink of a major breakthrough toward a cure.
New studies from the Scripps Research Institute in California and Sweden's Karolinska Institute have shown that a series of vaccines can create a powerful immune response that blocks a wide range of persistent HIV strains.
But, the Scripps Institute recently had the rug pulled out from under itself.
In late May, the Department of Health and Human Services rescinded funding for a wide range of HIV research projects funded by the National Institute of Health, including the Scripps Institute, arguing that the current approach to HIV medication are enough.
"For HIV vaccine design and development, we've begun to see light at the end of the tunnel after many years of research," Dennis Burton, an immunology professor at Scripps Research, told CBS News. "This is a terrible time to cut it off. We're beginning to get close. We're getting good results out of clinical trials."
Experts in the field said the consequences of the NIH cuts will linger, potentially setting back the research timeline by a decade.
The Wistar Institute has several ties to NIH-funded programs. It leads BEAT-HIV, an international program that focuses on advancing an HIV cure, and is part of the Penn Center for Aids Research collaborative with the University of Pennsylvania and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
When asked whether the Wistar Institute has been impacted by NIH cuts, Montaner did not directly answer, saying researchers remain committed to the new center's purpose.
"We are actively working with the NIH," Montaner said. "But our focus remains on our shared commitment to science and the important research that we're known for, and we continue to pursue."