Chris Salgardo, president of Kiehl’s Since 1851, recently presented a check for $150,000 to Kevin Robert Frost, CEO of amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research. The check was presented during the seventh annual Kiehl’s LifeRide for amfAR, an annual charity motorcycle ride that took place Aug. 3rd.

Kiehl’s LifeRide for amfAR raised the funds at multiple high-profile events during the 11-day, 1,100-mile motorcycle charity ride that began in New York City on August 3rd, and ended in Philadelphia on August 13th.

Salgardo said, “The Kiehl’s LifeRide for amfAR is a testament to the idea that we all have the power to make noise and inspire action,” said Chris Salgardo, President of Kiehl’s Since 1851. “Through Dr. Pillai’s work and that of many other scientists working on HIV cure research every day with amfAR, we believe that we will ultimately end the AIDS epidemic once and for all.” 

Funding Life-Saving Research

The money raised will go toward a specific cure-focused research project led by Satish Pillai, Ph.D., Associate Investigator at the Blood Systems Research Institute and Associate Professor of Laboratory Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

The major barrier to curing HIV is believed to be the reservoir of persistent virus that remains in a person even after they have reached a so-called “undetectable” level of HIV as a result of antiretroviral therapy. This virus lies in a very small number of cells and is invisible to the immune system. Scientists are currently trying to understand the biological mechanisms underlying this reservoir and how they can be manipulated to cure HIV.

The funds raised from LifeRide will help Dr. Pillai study two cellular proteins, p21 and schaflen 11, that keep the virus in its hidden state and are present in HIV-infected people with the smallest reservoir. Dr. Pillai is using cutting-edge, single-cell analyses to study these new proteins and determine how they reduce the size of the reservoir. Ultimately, if the two antivirus factors are found to play a role in determining the size of the viral reservoir, it may constitute a pathway for the development of anti-latency drugs.