UNMC researcher Georgette Kanmogne, PhD, remembers what the statistics were like in her native country when the human immunodeficiency virus — more commonly known as HIV, the virus that causes AIDS – arrived in Cameroon more than three decades ago.
“At that time, up to 40% of babies born to HIV-infected mothers acquired the deadly disease. Rapid progression to AIDS was common and many died,” she said.
“Now, because of advances in antiretroviral therapy, the rate of mother-to-child HIV transmission has decreased to below 2% in developed countries and below 17% in many sub-Saharan African countries,” she said.
Today, many babies born to infected mothers who are on antiretroviral therapy are not infected at birth and can live a long healthy life, she said.
Dr. Kanmogne, a professor in the UNMC Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience, is determined to improve the statistics even more.
While antiretroviral drug therapy has significantly increased the life expectancy of HIV-infected adults, making HIV more of a chronic disease, up to 50% of those individuals develop behavioral, motor and cognitive abnormalities referred to as HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND), Dr. Kanmogne said.
“Neurocognitive impairment is present in up to 50% of people infected with HIV and is often associated with similar brain pathologies as Alzheimer’s Disease.”
Autopsy studies of HIV-infected patients that developed HAND showed Alzheimer’s-like brain pathologies, including increased brain amyloid-beta production and aggregation, amyloid plaques, hyperphosphorylation of Tau protein and formation of neurofibrillary tangles-like structures in the brain.
The causes of these brain pathologies and associated mechanisms are not known.
Previous research, led by Dr. Kanmogne and published in the journal Molecular Neurodegeneration in 2021, showed that treatment with an antagonist of the C-C chemokine receptor type 5 (CCR5) significantly reduced HIV-induced Alzheimer’s-like brain pathologies and protected the blood-brain barrier.
“The blood brain barrier is a complex and dynamic structure that acts as a biological interface between the blood and the brain and plays a critical role in maintaining CNS homeostasis,” Dr. Kanmogne said.
Earlier this year, Dr. Kanmogne received a five-year, $3.6 million R01 grant funded by the National Institutes of Health to investigate the molecular mechanisms regulating the protective effects of CCR5 antagonists and whether co- administration of antiretroviral drugs with the CCR5 antagonist maraviroc can prevent the formation of amyloid plaques and neurodegeneration that leads to cognitive impairments.
“By adding an already FDA approved CCR5 antagonist to the current antiretroviral regimens we hope to help prevent Alzheimer’s disease-like brain pathologies and CNS complications that can develop following HIV infection,” Dr. Kanmogne said.
Video: Georgette Kanmogne, PhD, describes her passion for research and the challenges of being a woman and a woman of color in the world of science.