Centers for HIV Structural Biology

The Centers for HIV Structural Biology, established in 2007 by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), integrate a variety of techniques from structural biology, biochemistry and cell biology to capture in unprecedented detail the three-dimensional structures of HIV proteins and nucleic acids and their interactions with cellular components. This information will help elucidate how the different components interact and reveal new approaches for disrupting those interactions, potentially leading to new targets for HIV therapies and preventive vaccines.

The Center awards were transferred from NIGMS to NIAID in 2019 as a part of the consolidation of AIDS basic research projects in the NIAID Division of AIDS. The program was continued in 2022 with the funding of six new Centers. The Centers include research across the HIV life cycle, aiming, for example, to elucidate the mechanism the HIV envelope protein uses to enter a target cell, the interactions of virus structures with host proteins that either facilitate or antagonize infection, and the way that the HIV RNA genome folds into complex assemblies with other viral components before being packaged into newly formed virions.