The Ott Lab is part of a newly formed global “Collaboratory” dedicated to curing HIV/AIDS through a novel “block, lock and excise” approach to the virus. With Dr. Melanie Ott serving as one of the principal investigators, the Ott Lab’s focus is to exploit the epigenetic architecture of the integrated provirus to enhance latency and silence viral activitywithout continuous medication. The Collaboratory will be led by researchers at Gladstone Institutes, Scripps Research, and Weill Cornell Medicine.
The HIV Obstruction by Programmed Epigenetics (HOPE) Collaboratory brings together teams from 11 research institutions around the world — all dedicated to a new approach to curing HIV/AIDS. This approach, which aims to both silence and permanently remove HIV from patients’ bodies, takes advantage of knowledge about how other viruses have become naturally inactivated over time. Coming together for HOPE are the Gladstone Institutes; Scripps Research; Weill Cornell Medicine; Buck Institute for Research on Aging; Cornell University; Heinrich-Pette-Institut (Hamburg, Germany); National Institutes of Health; University of California- Berkeley; University of Sao Paulo (Brazil); Walter Reid Army Institute of Research; and Yale University.