Our Story
In 2008, Zachary Barnett was infected with HIV. His body presented a rare response: it began to naturally suppress the virus without medication. Barnett volunteered for HIV cure studies; donating blood, lymph nodes, and bone tissue to institutions like Harvard and the NIH to help scientists and doctors improve HIV research and treatment.
In 2009, Dr. Sudhir Paul of the University of Texas Houston Medical Center announced a new vaccine he called the “HIV E-Vaccine” which realized a theory originally put forth by Nobel laureate biochemist Linus Pauling. The approach aimed to unlock a natural immunity to HIV that exists in everyone—but is suppressed by the virus. The “E” in “E-Vaccine” stands for electrophilic, which describes the use of strategic covalent bonding to overcome evolutionary defenses of antigens that have learned to evade our immune system.
Dr. Paul’s work was widely circulated, including on a CBS News segment titled Possible HIV Cure, and it received significant peer-reviewed NIH funding, but it is still in development. However, additional support is now needed to optimize the vaccine formulation for maximal antibody titers, complete final toxicity studies, and advance to human clinical trials.
To help catalyze progress Barnett founded the Abzyme Research Foundation (ARF) to help remove the barriers of development, approvals, and distribution of HIV E-Vaccine, so we can move toward the end of the AIDS epidemic. The Abzyme Research Foundation (“ARF”) owns the intellectual property for the HIV E-Vaccine. This vaccine candidate is novel and able to induce a unique class of antibodies that catalyze the destruction of the protein HIV uses to infect human cells. Immunization with the HIV E-Vaccine in both mice and monkeys has produced antibodies that have neutralized diverse strains of HIV in human tissue samples.
Now ARF is seeking to optimize the unique chemical formulation of the vaccine before moving into human clinical trials. We seek to leverage artificial Intelligence to optimize the formulation before moving into clinical trials.
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We are working on a promising solution to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and now want to turn that potential cure into a reality. Read about this science 35 years in the making, and how our unique structure makes the most out of your charitable donation.
Advancing research today, providing access to those who need it in the future.
1967
Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling theorizes the potential for the body to create antibodies that display enzymatic activity, capable of destroying a target versus binding to one. These become known as “abzymes.”
1988
Dr. Sudhir Paul first discovers catalytic antibodies, also called abzymes, in patients suffering from autoimmune diseases.
1988-2008
Dr. Sudhir Paul and colleagues receive $15+ million in NIH grants to discover catalytic antibody chemical, immunity and structure rules.
2003
HIV E-vaccine is invented as a novel way of inducing catalytic antibodies to conserved regions of HIV.
2004
Catalytic antibodies are proven to super-antigens as basis therapy.
2009
HIV E-vaccine induces broadly neutralizing antibodies to diverse strains of HIV.
2010
Zachary Barnett founded Abzyme Research Foundation to support the development of the HIV E-Vaccine.
2014
Abzyme Research Foundation funds pre-IND filing with FDA and receives useful feedback and helps inform the path to human clinical trials.
2017
Abzyme Research funds additional preclinical work while the inventors of the technology attempt to engage pharma partners to develop the technology through their for-profit venture, Covalent BioScience.
2025
Dr. Sudhir Paul and his research partners decided to donate the intellectual property behind the HIV E-Vaccine to Abzyme Research Foundation to give the potential solution the best chance of success.
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