# Breaking the Barrier to an HIV Vaccine

> **NIH NIH DP1** · UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO · 2024 · $1,095,500

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
HIV remains the most consequential zoonosis of the last century, with 36 million fatalities and another 37 million
infected. Even today, almost 2,000 people per day die of HIV/AIDS globally. Medications are reducing the effects
of HIV on the human body and transmission of the virus to others. However, 40 years into the pandemic, there
are no vaccines. Effective HIV vaccines remain our only hope of ending the HIV/AIDS pandemic once and for
all. HIV vaccines are mostly developed in macaque monkeys, although this primate model of HIV infection has
many limitations. Here, we explore a new animal model for HIV infection that recapitulates all key milestones in
HIV acute infection and in the establishment of the latent viral reservoir. We develop the tools necessary to turn
this into the long-sought model for HIV vaccine development. This new animal model will provide the perfect
system to study the immune correlates of protection, the breadth of cross-protection against different HIV-1
subtypes, and to test and develop vaccine candidates.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10894882
- **Project number:** 5DP1AI175471-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO
- **Principal Investigator:** Sara Sawyer
- **Activity code:** DP1 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $1,095,500
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-09-30 → 2027-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10894882

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10894882, Breaking the Barrier to an HIV Vaccine (5DP1AI175471-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-27 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10894882. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*