"Gyft" Cards Support HIV Vaccine Immunity Project

Starting Dec. 1, World AIDS Day, Gyft will donate 100 percent of all proceeds from Gyft Cards, redeemable at more than 200 retailers, to the Immunity Project. The goal is to raise $1 million to advance their HIV research in 2014.

"We are thrilled to harness the power of our 21st century approach to buying and managing gift cards to support a similarly revolutionary approach to ending AIDS," said Vinny Lingham, co-founder and chief executive officer of Gyft. "In the spirit of World AIDS Day and the holiday season, our message to customers is simple -- if you are a planning on buying gift cards in December, you have no excuse not to do it through Gyft and support an effort that could solve one of society's most vexing problems -- ending AIDS."

Gyft provides a digital gift card platform that enables consumers to upload, buy, send and redeem gift cards from their phone. Users can instantly purchase gift cards for themselves or send them to friends and can choose from hundreds of popular retailers including Sephora, Gap, Target and many more household brands.

And users to never have to worry about losing or forgetting to carry around another plastic gift card again -- Gyft allows them to upload their physical cards to Gyft.com. After users upload their cards to Gyft, they can redeem in-store or online instantly. They can also track their balances and safely store their card information within the app.

Co-founder Vinny Lingham is from South Africa and is passionate about addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic in his home country and worldwide. He was happy to enter into the partnership with Immunity Project to work toward a vaccine.

The Immunity Project adopts the unique targeting capability inherent in HIV controllers -- people who have a natural immunity to HIV -- to give everyone that same immunity to HIV. Although controllers carry low levels of HIV, the virus is in a dormant state and they do not contract AIDS.

To develop the vaccine, a machine-learning algorithm, similar to what is used in the most advanced spam filtering software, was developed to identify the Achilles heel biological markers on the HIV virus. The vaccine formulation consists of the Achilles heel biological markers and FDA approved chemicals that cause an immune system response.

The Project's proprietary formulation enables the vaccine prototype to be stored in inert powder form, delivered to patients through a nasal inhaler and stored without refrigeration. The Immunity Project vaccine is the first to be developed that doesn't contain any living or non-living virus, giving it the potential to be among the safest vaccines ever developed. They will offer the HIV vaccine to the world for free.

"Our vaccine is ready to be tested in people now, but we need your help to make that happen," said Dr. Reid Rubsamen, founder and chief executive officer of Immunity Project. "One of the easiest ways you can help is to just buy your gift cards this holiday season through Gyft."

The Gyft/Immunity Project partnership will run through Dec. 31, 2013. Any proceeds from gift cards purchased during the month of December will be donated to Immunity Project.