HIV Cured?

Staff

Two important, but different advancements appear to have spelled the end of HIV. First, genetic therapies discovered in 2009 when a bone marrow transplant cured a man of HIV led to the advancements of several gene therapies. Fast tracked through the FDA approval process, these therapies should be completing clinical trials, or be in late clinical trials about this time. A single treatment will cause white blood cells to be resistant to the HIV infection. It was found that this phenomenon existed in nature, albeit rarely. It was a bone marrow transplant from a donor with this rare condition that cured a man of HIV.

Sangamo Biosciences, one of the first to start clinical trials in 2009, makes artificial versions of natural enzymes called zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs), which zero in on and disrupt any chosen genes, in particular, the CCR5 gene, which blocks HIV infection.

The most advanced ZFP Therapeutic(TM) development program as of May 2010 is in a Phase 2b clinical trial for evaluation of safety and clinical effect in patients with diabetic neuropathy and a Phase 2 trial in ALS. Sangamo also has two Phase 1 clinical trials to evaluate safety and clinical effect of a treatment for HIV/AIDS and another Phase 1 trial to evaluate safety and clinical effect of a treatment for recurrent glioblastoma multiforme. Second, in July of 2010, Two potent human antibodies that can stop more than 90 percent of known global HIV strains from infecting human cells in the laboratory have been discovered by scientists led by a team from the NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Vaccine Research Center.

These antibodies could be used to design improved HIV vaccines, or can be further developed to prevent or treat HIV infection. Also, the method used to find these antibodies could be applied to isolate therapeutic antibodies for other infectious diseases as well.

The scientists found two naturally occurring, powerful antibodies called VRC01 and VRC02 in an HIV infected individual’s blood using a novel molecular device they developed that hones in on the specific cells that make antibodies against HIV. The device is an HIV protein that the scientists modified so it would react only with antibodies specific to the site where the virus binds to cells it infects.

These developments and others not discussed in this article appear to spell the end of HIV. It will be interesting to see how these developments unfold, as they could mean the end of billions in research money and the dismantling of a huge research infrastructure.