Researchers create molecule that could ‘kick and kill’ HIV

Current anti-AIDS drugs are highly effective at making HIV undetectable and allowing people with the virus to live longer, healthier lives. The treatments, a class of medications called antiretroviral therapy, also greatly reduce the chance of transmission from person to person.But the medications do not actually rid the body of the virus, which has the ability to elude medications by lying dormant in cells called CD4+ T cells, which signal another type of T cell, the CD8, to destroy HIV-infected cells. When a person with HIV stops treatment, the virus emerges and replicates in the body, weakening the immune system and raising the likelihood of opportunistic infections or cancers that can sicken or kill the patient.Researchers have been looking for ways to eliminate the “reservoirs” where the virus hides, and researchers from UCLA, Stanford University and the National Institutes of Health may have developed a solution. Their approach involves sending an agent to “wake up” the dormant virus, which causes it to begin replicating so that either the immune syst em or the virus itself would kill the cell harboring HIV.Scientists call the technique “kick and kill.”Destroying the reservoir cells could rid some or all of the HIV virus from people who are infected. And although the scientists ’ approach has not been tested in humans yet, a synthetic molecule they developed has been effective at kicking and killing HIV in lab animals, according to a study published Sept. ...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news