A Society without AIDS: HIV Reservoirs Cure

On the way for a society without AIDS, progress has been achieved in developing
new strategies for HIV reservoirs functional control. Hope for a drug-free HIV r
emission is now on the horizon.
Toulon, France, January 03, 2011 -- On the way for a society without AIDS, progr
ess has been achieved in developing new strategies for HIV reservoirs functional
control. Hope for a drug-free HIV remission is now on the horizon.
Finding a cure for HIV infection requires stopping ongoing viral replication, id
entifying all HIV reservoirs in which non-replicating latent HIV persists and er
adicating or controlling them without the need of continued antiretroviral thera
py. Advances have recently been made in each of these areas and the word cure is
no longer a forbidden term.
New HIV latency models
New cell models of HIV latency have been established, allowing a better characte
rization of the mechanisms of HIV persistence, as the selection of chemical comp
ounds able to wake-up HIV from its latent state.
New drugs in the pipeline
The goal is to flush out and kill latent viruses in HIV reservoirs that remain i
n the body even when viral load is undetectable. Until now, no one could figure
out how to activate only cells latently infected with HIV, and not all inactive
cells, which could be deadly. Using the new intro models, a Baltimore team was a
ble to screen 9 compounds doing exactly what needed. Another team in Madrid isol
ated an extract from a plant called Euphorbia that is found in the Mediterranean
. This chemical compound was very useful to reactivate the virus but also protec
t uninfected cells. Meanwhile, a Los Angeles consortium is trying to synthetize
Prostratin, the active constituent of extracts of the tropical plant Homalanthus
nutans. This compound is able to activate latent HIV in cells, forcing them to
produce new virus, but is difficult to obtain, as the plant supply is limited.
New hopes from clinical data
If a short course of HIV therapy is started immediately and aggressively at the
acute HIV infection phase, a functional cure - a lifetime without symptoms, dise
ase progression or prolonged ARV treatment- could be obtained in a significant p
roportion of patients. This strategy can effectively prevent the HIV reservoir f
rom becoming too large; allowing treatment to be stopped indefinitely without in
creases in viral load or decreases in CD4 cells.
Because of the size of the global HIV epidemic and the tremendous number of new
infections each year, maintaining every single HIV-positive person in the world
on antiretroviral therapy will be impossible to implement. Consequently, new str
ategies to tackle persistent HIV in reservoirs and achieve a functional cure are
urgently needed for a society and a world free of AIDS.
About Us
We are committed in finding an HIV cure and organizing the top-notch scientific
workshop on HIV reservoirs and HIV persistence: http://www.hiv-eradication.org
Contact:
Alain Lafeuillade
CHITS
1208 av. Cl Picot
Toulon, France 83056
33494616340
lafeuillade@orange.fr
http://www.hiv-eradication.org