Meeting Summary for Keystone Symposia on HIV Cure: Antiretroviral Therapy (ART)-Free Control of HIV Infection in Durban, South Africa, 2025

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) can effectively control Human Immunodeficiency virus (HIV) replication, however lifelong treatment is required due to persistence of viral reservoirs which drive recrudescence once ART is stopped. This necessitates curative interventions which can achieve either eradication or durable remission off ART. Advances in technology have fostered development of multi-omic techniques encompassing Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and sequencing, spatial transcriptomic and proteomic analysis, immunofluorescent imaging, and Artificial intelligence (AI)-driven multi-modal data analysis, to understand the HIV reservoir biology and mechanisms of persistence. These have informed the investigation of therapeutic interventions including broadly neutralizing antibodies, latency reversal, immune cell argumentation, antiviral compounds, and gene therapy. Between April 7–10 2025, experts in the field convened at the Keystone Symposia conference - “HIV Cure: Antiretroviral Therapy (ART)-Free Control of HIV Infection in Durban, South Africa, to discuss novel strategies for eradication and/or durable ART-free control of HIV.