Last checked at 
* GSK commits $20 mln to new HIV Cure centre at Chapel Hill
* Cure for AIDS on agenda following recent advances
* Research will focus on approaches such as "shock and kill"
By Ben Hirschler
LONDON, May 11 (Reuters) - Britain's GlaxoSmithKline, which decided last week to retain rather than float offits HIV drugs business, is to collaborate with U.S. scientistsin developing a cure for AIDS.
Until recently, many researchers were reluctant to evendiscuss the possibility of curing the disease caused by HIV,which infects 35 million people worldwide, since the obstaclesseemed insurmountable.
But after a 30-year battle to keep HIV at bay with life-timeantiretroviral drugs, there is growing optimism that a cure isfeasible.
The case of Timothy Brown, the so-called "Berlin patient"whose HIV was eradicated by a complex treatment for leukaemia in2007, marked the first cure and the science has been advancingsince then.
GSK is tapping into the latest expertise by creating an HIVCure centre with the University of North Carolina (UNC) atChapel Hill and establishing a new jointly owned company.
The drugmaker said on Monday it would invest $20 million tohelp fund the work for an initial five years.
Scientists will study various cure options, including aso-called "shock-and-kill" strategy developed at UNC, whichunmasks dormant HIV hiding in white blood cells, so that it canbe attacked by a boosted immune system.
It is likely to prove a long haul, however.
"In the next five to 10 years we should gain more knowledgearound the various mechanisms that could contribute to a cureand maybe in the next 10 to 20 years we can really bring thesemodalities together," Zhi Hong, GSK's infectious diseases head,told Reuters.
In the case of the Berlin patient, curing HIV involved astem cell transplant from a donor with a rare genetic mutationthat resists HIV infection.
This complicated approach could never be replicated on alarge scale, so researchers are pinning their hopes onsimplified systems that may also be able to exploit recentbreakthroughs in immune system-boosting drugs for cancer.
"I expect we will have progress in fits and starts, so weneed a structure to pursue this work in a rational way over along period of time," said David Margolis of UNC.
GSK sells HIV medicines through its majority-owned ViiVHealthcare unit, which it had been considering for a stockmarket listing, until a change of tack on May 6.
Its investment at Chapel Hill is separate from ViiV,although ViiV will play an advisory role.
(Editing by Pravin Char)
