If the ongoing new medical therapy in trial by British scientists becomes successful, then the end of AIDS-causing HIV virus is here.
The breakthrough is a result of a new therapy that targets the disease even in its dormant state. It is the first treatment created to track down and destroy HIV in every part of the body.
“This is one of the first serious attempts at a full cure for HIV,” Mark Samuels, managing director of the National Institute for Health Research Office for Clinical Research Infrastructure, told the Times.
“We are exploring the real possibility of curing HIV. This is a huge challenge and it’s still early days but the progress has been remarkable,” he said.
Fighting HIV has been one of the greatest challenges facing researchers, because it targets the immune system itself. It entwines with the DNA of T-cells (or T lymphocytes that play a central role in the body’s immune response) in a way that they not only ignore its presence, but begin reproducing the virus as well.
Further, the infected T-cells can lie dormant for years, reproducing the virus without detection from our bodies and activating at a time when the immune system is at its weakest.
The therapy, designed by researchers from Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College London, University College London and King’s College London, works in two stages.
In the first step, a vaccine helps the body recognize these HIV-infected cells so it can clear them out. The second step involves a new drug called Vorinostat which activates dormant T-cells, so they too can be spotted by the immune system.
50 people have taken the trial treatment, with the British man being the first to complete it. The virus is completely undetectable in his blood as of now, but he will have to wait a few months before knowing if the virus has been completely eradicated.
The unidentified individual, a 44 year old social care worker in London, said, “I took part in the trial to help others as well as myself. It would be a massive achievement if, after all these years, something is found to cure people of this disease. The fact that I was a part of that would be incredible.”
This is the first treatment that aims at completely flushing the HIV virus from the body, instead of suppressing it.
