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Video related to this article is available below.Issue date: 4/4/08 Section: News
HIV cocktails - on their way out?
Researcher works on a gene-therapy treatment for HIV that could slow the disease's spread within the body
Julia Harte
While many researchers say an AIDS vaccine is distant - and some declare the prospect unrealistic - Pathology and Laboratory Medicine professor Carl June is pioneering a new gene therapy that could convert the HIV virus in a patient's body into a less harmful form.
While patients already can take "cocktails" of anti-retroviral drugs to manage the AIDS disease, such treatments are costly, ridden with unpleasant side-effects and ineffective in preventing the patient from passing on the virus.
June said he believes these downsides will be overcome by his treatment: a carrier of therapeutic genes that can be inserted into cells to bolster their immune response - possibly by weakening HIV when it attacks those cells.
Ideally, HIV victims treated with June's therapy would only be able to pass on a less virulent form of the virus, resulting in an overall "vaccine effect."
Laboratory and small clinical tests over the past five years have shown that this therapy suppresses HIV from spreading within the body.
June said the treatment "might be a way to vaccinate patients by giving them a virus that's less destructive, so the patient's own immune system could control it, and they wouldn't have to take pills for the rest of their life."
Paula Cannon, who teaches at the University of Southern California and works to develop anti-HIV gene-therapy strategies for children at the Children's Hospital Los Angeles, said that "what I find exciting about gene therapy is it has the potential to be a one-shot solution."
Still, according to Penn Hematology and Oncology professor James Hoxie, only the real vaccine can end the pandemic.
"There's no question treatment is important, but to be infected with HIV is to be infected for life. Nothing has changed that," he said. "You can't turn your back on the need to do everything you can to prevent infection."
About 33 million people worldwide are infected with HIV, according to UNAIDS.
While patients already can take "cocktails" of anti-retroviral drugs to manage the AIDS disease, such treatments are costly, ridden with unpleasant side-effects and ineffective in preventing the patient from passing on the virus.
June said he believes these downsides will be overcome by his treatment: a carrier of therapeutic genes that can be inserted into cells to bolster their immune response - possibly by weakening HIV when it attacks those cells.
Ideally, HIV victims treated with June's therapy would only be able to pass on a less virulent form of the virus, resulting in an overall "vaccine effect."
Laboratory and small clinical tests over the past five years have shown that this therapy suppresses HIV from spreading within the body.
June said the treatment "might be a way to vaccinate patients by giving them a virus that's less destructive, so the patient's own immune system could control it, and they wouldn't have to take pills for the rest of their life."
Paula Cannon, who teaches at the University of Southern California and works to develop anti-HIV gene-therapy strategies for children at the Children's Hospital Los Angeles, said that "what I find exciting about gene therapy is it has the potential to be a one-shot solution."
Still, according to Penn Hematology and Oncology professor James Hoxie, only the real vaccine can end the pandemic.
"There's no question treatment is important, but to be infected with HIV is to be infected for life. Nothing has changed that," he said. "You can't turn your back on the need to do everything you can to prevent infection."
About 33 million people worldwide are infected with HIV, according to UNAIDS.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Chris Conlon
posted 4/04/08 @ 5:47 AM EST
Research into HIV medicine is progressing very rapidly and it will be interesting to see if this research leads anywhere.
But it's important not to under-estimate the efficacy and tolerability of currently available anti-HIV treatment. (Continued…)
Gregory P. Dupont
posted 4/04/08 @ 2:45 PM EST
This is almoat like the evolution of the virus that William Gibson speculated on in "Virtual Light".i.e;the virus replacing itself with a non-lethal version in th einterest of self-preservation(can't kill the entire host population and continue"
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