Ashish Sharma
Emory University, GA·Microbiology & Immunology
Antiretroviral therapy (ART), the standard daily drug treatment for HIV, can keep the virus suppressed for years. It cannot cure the infection, because HIV hides in a reservoir of long-lived infected cells.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Computer Science
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
HIV reservoir
HIV cure
pediatric HIV
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Apr 2028
What they work on
- Identify features in large-scale omics datasets that are linked to HIV viral rebound and HIV DNA decline, using statistical and bioinformatics analysis of data from all program projects.
- Integrate separate models of how metabolites and the immune system regulate the HIV reservoir into one unified model that highlights recurring features as targets for future therapies.
- Measure how thymic output and HIV-infected recent thymic emigrants (new T cells from the thymus) contribute to the size of the intact HIV reservoir in children living with HIV.
- Test how the gut metabolites short-chain fatty acids and bile acids affect production of IL-10 and TGF-β (anti-inflammatory signals) and reservoir levels, using targeted metabolomics on pediatric cohort samples.
- Profile immune cell balance and HIV-specific immune function in children using high-dimensional flow cytometry and single-cell profiling of gene activity and epigenetic marks, then predict reservoir size with machine learning.
More about the research
The work asks how the body's environment shapes this hidden reservoir. That environment includes the gut microbiome, metabolites (small molecules produced by the body and by gut bacteria), and immune signaling. The work spans two parts of a multi-project program, one focused on data integration and one focused on children living with HIV.
Why it matters
Current therapies that target only HIV leave hidden infected cells in place, so people need lifelong treatment. By finding the metabolites, microbes and immune factors that keep the reservoir going, this work could identify new targets for cure strategies. These strategies would restore immune function to clear infected cells, with a particular focus on approaches suited to children living with HIV. The team aims to eventually turn its findings into clinical trial protocols.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Dennis Hartigan-O'Connor
University of California-Davis, CA·Microbiology & Immunology
Test whether partial-agonist IL-10 cytokines combined with mRNA vaccination can make HIV-specific T-cell responses unusually durable in macaques, including CXCR5+ follicular T cells that enter lymph-node sites where antibody-producing B cells mature.
Angela Raquel Wahl
University of Alabama at Birmingham, AL·Microbiology & Immunology
Analyze how the HIV reservoir forms in the gastrointestinal tract of BLT humanized mice on antiretroviral therapy, measuring HIV DNA and transcripts in gut CD4+ T cells compared with blood.
Charles Rinaldo
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Microbiology & Immunology
Measure neutralizing antibody function and B lymphocyte responses after Pfizer or Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccination in 200 men and women with HIV and 50 HIV-negative controls from the MWCCS.
The school
Emory University: 70 labs on PI Pages, $1.2B a year on research, 286 research doctorates a year.
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