WHY 
EU2CONTROL
MATTERS

HIV treatment has come a long way, helping people live longer and healthier lives. But taking daily medication for life can be challenging and is costly. That’s because HIV hides in the body in a “reservoir” of infected cells, and without treatment, the virus usually comes back.
To learn more about these rare individuals, researchers across Europe have joined forces through the EU2Cure consortium. They’re using data and samples from past studies and recruiting new participants to build the largest-ever group of PTCs. This will help scientists study how the immune system and the virus interact by using advanced laboratory techniques.
Some rare (~7%) individuals — called post-treatment controllers (PTCs) — can keep HIV under control even after stopping treatment. Scientists are not able yet to predict who these people are, as in most people the virus returns after stopping treatment.
By understanding how some people naturally control HIV, we hope to develop better strategies for a future cure. 

What Kind of Study is This?

EU2Control is a multi-phase research project. That means we’re doing the work in steps, each with a clear goal:

Phase 1: 
Building the Biobank

• We’re collecting blood samples and clinical data from people who were part of earlier HIV cure studies.

• The clinical data will be stored in a secure, central database at Erasmus MC in the Netherlands.

• All research partners in the EU2Cure network will have access to this data to help answer important questions.

Phase 2: 
Recruiting New Participants

• We’re inviting new post-treatment controllers to join the study.

• We’re also expanding to more clinics across Europe to find more participants and include control groups for comparison.

 

Phase 3: 
Running Advanced Tests

• Scientists will run a core set of tests on the collected samples.

• These tests will help us understand how HIV hides in the body and how the immune system responds.

Phase 4: 
Discovering new clues

• Using the data from earlier phases, researchers will look for new parameters that might predict who can control HIV.

• We’ll use cutting-edge tools like single-cell analysis to study the immune system in detail.

EU2CONTROL IS A COLLABORATIVE
EFFORT 

 

Our goal is to make this
research meaningful
and accessible to everyone affected by HIV.

 
Any questions?

EU2Control is a study of the EU2Cure consortium: