Researchers used selected molecules to make human cells less tolerant of damage, so that reactivating hidden HIV becomes a clear trigger for cell death. While making cells more vulnerable to dying may sound counterintuitive, the strategy ensures that cells harbouring HIV are eliminated, removing the hidden virus they contain. This in turn means there potentially will be no viable virus left to re-do the spreading all over again in the absence of treatment.
Although the approach is still at a very early pre-clinical stage and represents a proof of concept – in other words, a preliminary test to show the idea can work – it may be the missing step in the ‘shock-and-kill’ cure strategies. Findings were published by Dr Min Li of the Houston Methodist Research Institute and colleagues in The Journal of Infectious Diseases.
Read the full news story at aidsmap.
Source : aidsmap
Get involved
Are you living with HIV/AIDS? Are you part of a community affected by HIV/AIDS and co-infections? Do you work or volunteer in the field? Are you motivated by our cause and interested to support our work?
Subscribe
Stay in the loop and get all the important EATG updates in your inbox with the EATG newsletter. The HIV & co-infections bulletin is your source of handpicked news from the field arriving regularly to your inbox.