Researchers/Supervisors

Aubin Nanfack

SANTHE Scientific Innovation Awardee


Centre de Recherche sur les Maladies Emergentes et Reemergentes (CREMER)/Institut de Recherches Médicales et d’Etudes des Plantes Médicinales (IMPM)

Project

Metabolomic biomarkers of HIV reservoir size and reactivation potential in people living with HIV on antiretroviral therapy

Humoral immune response to non-B HIV-1 infection in children in Cameroon

Collaboration Interests
  • HIV diversity
  • HIV drug resistance mutations
  • HIV neutralising antibodies
  • HIV super-infection and HIV co-infections (HBV/HCV)
  • HIV viral reservoirs

Aubin Nanfack is the Head of Laboratory of Immunology and Microbiology at the Centre International de Reference Chantal Biya (CIRCB). He has accumulated broad experience in Biochemistry, Immunology, and Molecular Biology, with specific training in HIV-1 diversity, HIV and co-infections (HIV/HBV and HIV/HCV), HIV-1 drug resistance mutations, HIV-1 viral reservoirs, HIV-1 super-infection and HIV-1 neutralising antibodies.

Nanfack’s research team is interested in characterising HIV-1 reservoirs and HIV-1 neutralising antibodies in individuals infected with HIV-1 CRF02_AG, the most prevalent HIV-1 subtype in Cameroon and the fourth most prevalent subtype in the world. Effective antiretroviral therapy (ART) is unable to completely eradicate HIV regardless of the ART combination and duration. Therefore, there is emerging interest in developing safe and affordable curative strategies to eliminate the need for lifelong therapy and reduce the risk of viral transmission to uninfected individuals. To end the HIV-1 epidemic, scientists must develop safe, effective and easily accessible HIV vaccines capable of eliciting a combination of functional antibody immune responses of which neutralising antibodies are a critical component; and this requires an in-depth understanding of the environment of viral reservoirs and neutralising antibodies.

SANTHE is an Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI) flagship programme funded by the Science for Africa Foundation through the DELTAS Africa programme; the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Gilead Sciences Inc.; and the Ragon Institute of Mass General, MIT, and Harvard.