Scientists have accomplished another major breakthrough in the fight against HIV with a new method that will make cells resistant to the virus. The method, considered a new approach, is a form of “cellular vaccination” which is meant to provide long term protection, according to senior staff scientist Jia Xie at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) in California.
“The ultimate goal will be the control of HIV in patients with AIDS without the need for other medications,” Jia Xie said.
The method involves “tethering HIV-fighting antibodies to immune cells, creating a cell population that is resistant to the virus,” according to a report in Science Daily.
Experiments in the lab showed that the resistant cells replaced diseased cells, with antibodies clinging on to their surface, shielding them from HIV.
The researchers also confirmed that this new method proved more effective than the conventional way of treating HIV patients through “free-floating anitbodies”.
The researchers plan to collaborate with investigators at City of Hope’s Center for Gene Therapy, in California, to evaluate this new therapy in efficacy and safety tests, as required by federal regulations, prior to testing in patients.
The annual number of new HIV diagnoses declined by 19 percent from 2005 to 2014, the disease is still prevalent. According to WHO, there were approximately 36.7 million people living with HIV at the end of 2015.
‘HIV is treatable but not curable – this remains a disease that causes a lot of suffering. That makes the case for why these technologies are so important,’ said Dr Joseph Alvarnas, from City of Hope.
In addition to the collaboration, Dr Xie said the next step in this research will be to try engineering antibodies to protect a different receptor on the cell surface.
Dr Carl Dieffenbach, of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, told Daily Mail Online that while the design of the idea is interesting, there is a fundamental problem when it comes to gene therapy.
‘How do you know how to put antibodies into the right cells?’ he explained. ‘HIV is notorious for generating large variations and what will happen is that some population of the virus will not bind to the antibody so you’ll kill off sensitive cells but the virus will continue to grow.
‘With anti-retroviral drugs, we have to use a three drug cocktail because of the virus’s many variations so you would have to use a similar cocktail of antibodies.’
Dr Dieffenbach added that while there have been several tantalizing research breakthroughs in the last five years, the new findings have yet to be proven in clinical trials.
‘We have amazing therapy and really effective therapies, very good tools. But we’re not at the point yet where we can make better tools, like a cure or a vaccine,’ he said.
