More exciting health news is reaching us this month, as scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found a way to tether HIV-fighting antibodies to immune cells, creating a cell population resistant to the virus. Experiments under lab conditions show that these resistant cells can quickly replace diseased cells, creating a potential cure for HIV/AIDS.
“This protection would be long term,” said Jia Xie, senior staff scientist at TSRI and first author of the study published April 10th, in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
A New Approach to an HIV Cure
As explained in the study, “The new technique offers a significant advantage over therapies where antibodies float freely in the bloodstream at a relatively low concentration. Instead, antibodies in the new study hang on to a cell’s surface, blocking HIV from accessing a crucial cell receptor and spreading infection”, in what Xie labelled a “neighbor effect”.
In other words, because an antibody is “stuck” nearby the surface of a cell, it is more effective than having many antibodies floating freely throughout the patient’s bloodstream.
As a new approach to curing HIV, the potential for this developing therapy would be life-changing for patients. Limited so far to the lab, further research is needed in clinical trials. Therefore, the researchers are planning to collaborate with investigators at City of Hope’s Center for Gene Therapy to evaluate this new therapy in efficacy and safety tests, as required by federal regulations, prior to testing in patients.
“City of Hope currently has active clinical trials of gene therapy for AIDS using blood stem cell transplantation, and this experience will be applied to the task of bringing this discovery to the clinic,” said John A. Zaia, M.D., director of the Center for Gene Therapy in the Hematological Malignancy and Stem Cell Transplantation Institute at City of Hope. “The ultimate goal will be the control of HIV in patients with AIDS without the need for other medications.” (ScienceDaily.com)
What an exciting time we live in, where new technologies lead to new ways of thinking, and new treatment protocols and therapies, for a variety of diseases human beings have struggled to overcome for generations.
