The federal government has ended funding for the Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Development, cutting $258 million in NIH grants to Duke University and the Scripps Research Institute and leaving the consortium's future in doubt.
Researchers were notified May 30 that the Department of Health and Human Services would not renew the grants. The agency said it wanted "to go with currently available approaches to eliminate HIV." NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya wrote that the agency is refocusing on implementation science and improving access to existing interventions. "Research on HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and cure will continue as needed to support this goal," he wrote.
Duke and Scripps each received $129 million seven-year grants from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in 2019. For Duke, it was the third consecutive award for this work. The consortium traces back to 2005, when Duke scientist Dr. Barton Haynes was chosen to lead a new university network studying the virus. The current grant expires next year.
For Kevin Saunders, associate director of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute, the end came slowly. The consortium had operated for 20 years, averaged $21 million annually, and had drawn close to $600 million in federal support since its creation. A new application cycle was expected in spring 2025. It never arrived. "I would like to think that I was always optimistic it was coming," Saunders said. "But that would be kind of a lie."
Duke called the decision "an enormous setback." The university said the consortium had made significant discoveries about how HIV infects humans, and that vaccine components were already in human trials. No other organization in the country has the infrastructure to bridge basic research and vaccine manufacturing at the scale of the 100-plus researchers in the consortium.
An HHS spokesperson said the agency had been funding 27 programs addressing HIV and AIDS and called the model "wasteful and inefficient." Critical HIV programs, the spokesperson said, would continue under the Administration for a Healthy America. The World Health Organization recorded 1.3 million new HIV cases in 2023. The consortium's money could run out in about a year.