of

In addition to helping to advance HIV cure research in Cameroon, this collaboration also provided an opportunity for lead author Chantal Emade Nkwelle to travel from Cameroon to work at Wistar for five months, learn many of Wistar's laboratory techniques on HIV research, and transfer them back to the University of Buea.

"This work demonstrates the value of global partnerships to the search for an HIV cure," said Luis Montaner, D.V.M.,

A collaboration between The Wistar Institute and the University of Buea in Cameroon has uncovered the mechanisms for a medicinal plant with anti-HIV potential in Croton oligandrus Pierre & Hutch, a species of African tree that has been used in traditional healing in Cameroon to treat a variety of diseases and conditions including cancers and diabetes.

This research is one of several discoveries on African chemical compounds that came from the collaboration between Wistar and the University of Buea Centre for Drug Discovery, which began in 2021.

Wistar Executive Vice President and director of the HIV Cure and Viral Diseases Center, who leads Wistar's HIV research efforts and served as a co-author on the paper.