BRIDGING RESERVOIR SCIENCE, INTEGRATED DRUG DISCOVERY, BIG DATA ANALYTICS, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND EPIDEMIOLOGY

This mobility program will advance research and innovation (R&I) in Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) persistence by partnering European and African institutions to co-develop robust, reproducible pipelines spanning ex vivo and reservoir assays, organoid based pharmacology, multi-omics integration, geospatial science, and artificial intelligence (AI) driven analytics. European R&I infrastructure capacity and established clinical cohorts, accredited laboratories, and proven assays already operationalized in African partner institutions, the project will generate calibrated feature sets to define reproducible immunological and molecular endotypes that inform long-acting antiretroviral therapy (LA-ART) and “block-and-lock” therapeutic strategies while creating opportunities for interdisciplinary, international and intersectoral transfer of knowledge. This will result to improved understanding of HIV reservoirs and positively impact capacity of EU researchers facilitated by bidirectional staff-exchanges across sectors and regions, pairing hands-on laboratory and clinical method transfer with data engineering, machine learning operations, and spatial epidemiology skills. European Countries will benefit through strengthened HIV research knowledge in implementation science, diversified evidence bases that improve the validity and generalizability of biomarkers and models across genotypes and comorbidity profiles, strengthened research infrastructures through shared protocols and reusable open tools. By pairing African established cohorts and proven assays with European strengths in infrastructure and capacity in HIV, immunology and organoid R&I, the consortium delivers durable scientific value for Europe and accelerates fair, scalable translation from discovery to policy and practice.