A Step Closer To Finding The Cure For HIV
Scientists have been trying for years to find a cure for HIV. Up until recently, there has only been one person who has been cured of HIV, they were known as the Berlin patient and sadly passed away from cancer earlier this year. However, this year also revealed a second person who is now being referred to as the London patient who has now been free of HIV for three years and declared cured.
Both of these patients received stem cell transplants in treatment to cancer and a lucky side effect seems to have been that this has rid their body of HIV. This is obviously not plausible on a large scale as a cure for HIV, but offers insight as to how a cure could work. Today, medical advancements mean that people living with HIV can live a long and healthy life, so a stem cell transplant would be deemed unnecessary. On top of this, effective treatment will prevent someone who is HIV positive from being able to give the virus to anyone else. This in itself is a scientific victory that provided a tipping point in the battle against HIV.
Despite this, there is still no cure for HIV, but different scientist and studies
show that we might be closer than we think.
Linos Vandekerckhove, a Belgian scientist, has researched for years
for a cure and is optimistic that the path has been paved. His study revealed
that “having a medicine that would only target the lymph nodes is wrong. What
this shows is that you need to focus on many organs, not just one.”
These findings have made his fellow Belgian
Jonathan Bossaer optimistic of what is to come.
“Ending the HIV and AIDS
epidemic is an enormous challenge and research for a cure and a vaccine needs
our full support,” he said.
“The fight is far from over, but we are on the right path.”
A different
study conducted by the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of
Medicine also suggests that we are closer to finding a cure. Researches at UCSD
”identified a key switch that has the potential to eliminate
dormant HIV reservoirs.”
“This is one of the key switches that the HIV field has been
searching for three decades to find,” said Tariq Rana, professor of paediatrics
and genetics at UCSF. “The most exciting part of this discovery has not been
seen before. By genetically modifying a long noncoding RNA, we prevent HIV
recurrence in T-cells and microglia upon cessation of antiretroviral treatment,
suggesting that we have a potential therapeutic target to eradicate HIV and
AIDS.”
At the same time, ´amfAR
Countdown To A Cure For Aids´ recently published an article where they too
state that a cure might be on the way. Through their research ”they
have termed convertibleCAR-T cells with a combination of micAbodies to kill
HIV-infected—but not uninfected—T cells.”
”Within 48 hours, these convertibleCAR-T cells were able to reduce by half the reservoir of inducible, latently infected cells obtained from the blood and tissues of HIV-infected individuals on antiretroviral treatment.”
They are currently conducting mouse
studies to test these convertibleCAR-T cells.
These emerging technologies “create a promising killing platform for attacking the latent HIV reservoir.”
A different approach is that of antiretroviral therapy (ART).
This is a mix of modern medicines which up until now patients had to take
regularly. But as researchers were trying to measure ”the effects of
ART on the virus reservoir so that they can up with a better solution that can
kill the virus permanently and hopefully cure HIV and AIDS” they
noticed that ”the viral strains in the HIV reservoir were related to the
strains that have been formed during the beginning of the treatment.”
Ronald Swanstrom, the senior co-author of the reports said that “It comes off like a big surprise and if we could understand the procedure of reservoir formation better, we might be able to stop their formation from the start of the treatment.”
There have been several studies that show the progress we´ve made in the past years is enormous. Curing HIV does not sound as unbelievable as it once did and until then we have the medical advancements to make sure people living with HIV have healthy and long lives.
Read related myGwork articles here:
New Studies Suggest Scientist Are Getting Closer In Treating HIV With Antibodies
FDA Approves New HIV Prevention Drug
Independent HIV Commission Aims to End Transmissions Within a Decade
Philadelphia Aims In Decreasing New HIV Infections By 90% In Next 10 Years
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