Danish researchers activate hidden HIV cells in major step towards a possible cure
22 Jul 2014
Danish researchers have devised a way to activate and expose hidden HIV cells to enable the immune system to fight them.
According to Ole Søgaard, a doctor from Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark, a study of six HIV-positive patients showed that a cancer drug could ''kick'' HIV out of its hiding place and into the bloodstream, where it could theoretically be attacked by the immune system.
The finding reported at the 20th International AIDS conference in Melbourne today, has been hailed as the single most important advance in finding a cure for the disease.
Dr Søgaard said patients received three doses of the cancer drug romidepsin over three weeks to see whether the virus would move out of reservoirs where it hid and could not be detected. The patients were all long-term HIV patients who remained on their antiretroviral treatment for the trial.
He said before the patients received the drug, they were carrying undetectable levels of HIV in their system, but the drug, within days moved significant amounts of the virus into their blood.
HIV has been known to hibernate in so-called ''reservoirs'' in the body, and re-emerge to infect patients. Romidepsin, a drug used in the treatment of lymphomas, was administered to six HIV-positive outpatients on antiretroviral therapy at the university hospital.
''We have now shown that we can activate a hibernating virus with Romidepsin and that the activated virus moves into the bloodstream in large amounts,'' the researchers said in a statement.
According to Søgaard who spoke to reporters, the team found a significant release of viral cells in five of the six patients after administration of the drug.
He added, the data was enough to say it was successful to kick the virus out of the cells.
The researchers' work formed part of a larger study into the possibilities of combining the activation of the virus and a vaccine to strengthen the immune system of patients.
(Read more: Anti-cancer drug kicks HIV out of hiding)
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