A team of researchers in Hong Kong has announced an important milestone in their development of a “functional cure” for HIV, the virus that causes the deadly condition of AIDS.
Source: ‘Functional Cure’: Hong Kong Team Announces New Universal HIV Antibody – Sputnik International
A team of researchers in Hong Kong has announced an important milestone in their development of a “functional cure” for HIV, the virus that causes the deadly condition of AIDS.
A team led by professor Chen Zhiwei of Hong Kong University’s AIDS Institute published their findings in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Reuters reported Friday. Their discovery, tested successfully in mice, points to a universal antibody that could control the virus and destroy infected cells.
Previous attempts at a cure or vaccine have been hampered by the many varieties of the virus, making wide-scale treatment difficult. But this antibody? “It works for all of them,” Chen said.
By a “functional cure,” Chen’s group means the amount of the virus would be kept so low in the body as to be undetectable, so long as patients keep getting regular injections of the antibody, which Chen predicts might only be necessary four times a year. If patients stop taking the antibody, symptoms could return as the virus proliferates through their body.
Only one person has ever been truly cured of HIV: a Seattle man named Timothy Brown known as “the Berlin Patient.” Brown received a bone marrow transplant to treat his leukemia in 2007 which, combined with a stem cell transplant from an HIV-immune donor, led to his being declared free of the disease in 2008 — this despite not having taken antiretroviral drugs for the prior year, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time.
Chen and his team say they hope to begin clinical trials in three to five years, Reuters noted.
HIV, or Human Immunodeficiency Virus, attacks the immune system’s white blood cells, which form the body’s natural defense against illness. “A person is said to have AIDS [Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome] when their immune system is too weak to fight off infection,” Avert noted. “This is the last stage of HIV, when the infection is very advanced, and if left untreated will lead to death.”
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