Promising News for those with AIDS

[random3434]

"Elite" HIV wife may hold secret to AIDS vaccine - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A woman who has never shown symptoms of infection with the AIDS virus may hold the secret to defeating the virus, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.



Infected at least 10 years ago by her husband, the woman is able somehow to naturally control the deadly and incurable virus -- even though her husband must take cocktails of strong HIV drugs to control his.

 

[CA95380]

Echo .... this would be totally awesome if they have found something new out.

 

[random3434]

Echo .... this would be totally awesome if they have found something new out.

Yes it would. Sadly, I have been to far too many funerals for friends who died from AIDS.

Let's hope science finds a cure!

 

[waltky]

HIV vaccine may come from patient antibodies...

Study of antibodies in HIV patient may help lead to vaccine
Oct. 13, 2015 - Broadly neutralizing antibodies, made by less than a quarter of HIV patients, develop in ways that battle the mutations of the virus.

The difficulty creating a vaccine against the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, has been the inability to stimulate the production of "broadly neutralizing" antibodies that can keep up with its mutations. A new study of a woman whose body makes the antibodies sheds new light on how they develop to mutate with and combat HIV. "The study also showed how these early antibodies matured to become broadly neutralizing," researchers in the study said in a press release. "As the HIV-swarm struggled to evade these potent early antibodies, it toggled through many mutations in its surface protein. This exposed the maturing antibodies to a diverse range of viruses within this single infected woman. Antibodies exposed to this high level of viral diversity in turn mutated to be able to tolerate variation, thus acquiring the ability to neutralize diverse global viruses."

The many mutations of HIV make it difficult for the body to fight. However, broadly neutralizing antibodies made by some patients develop as the HIV is infecting a person, learning to fight the virus as it matures.

HIV survives the immune system by going through an endless series of mutations, which allow it to evade the body's defenses. Some people's bodies, however, develop broadly neutralizing antibodies during the infection phase of HIV, so the antibodies develop as the virus goes through mutations -- effectively teaching the antibodies how to fight it.

The researchers observed an HIV-infected woman for three years as her body made the antibodies, allowing them to identify 33 monoclonal antibodies. They identified minority viral variants, before deep-sequencing further variations in the antibodies as they fought the virus. "These findings provide insights for the design of vaccines that can 'kick-start' and then shape the maturation of broadly neutralizing antibodies in HIV uninfected individuals, to provide protection from HIV exposure," the researchers said. The study is published in Nature: Medicine.

Study of antibodies in HIV patient may help lead to vaccine​

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[Delta4Embassy]

"Elite" HIV wife may hold secret to AIDS vaccine - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A woman who has never shown symptoms of infection with the AIDS virus may hold the secret to defeating the virus, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.



Infected at least 10 years ago by her husband, the woman is able somehow to naturally control the deadly and incurable virus -- even though her husband must take cocktails of strong HIV drugs to control his.

There's also a drug available in Asia and kinda in Australia being hyped as a cure.

Activists shout out for PrEP in Melbourne

"The ads appear as new research both here and overseas suggest a daily dose of the Truvada pill drastically reduces the likelihood that HIV will be transmitted.

Many HIV experts across Australia now hope the medication will be funded locally for use by at-risk communities – like sexually active gay men – to help end new HIV infections.

For example, San Francisco has significantly increased access to PrEP in the past three years and there’s been a 30% decrease in new HIV transmissions in that time.

Here in Australia, Truvada is currently not yet approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, 
nor listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. This means access to PrEP is 
limited and expensive."

more at link

 

[waltky]

Hopes for a functional cure for HIV...

Experiment in Monkeys Raises Hopes of 'Functional Cure' for HIV
October 13, 2016 — A new drug combination helped stave off a monkey version of HIV for nearly two years after stopping all treatments, raising hopes for a functional cure for HIV, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

The treatment involved standard HIV drugs, known as antiretroviral therapy or ART, plus an experimental antibody that hits the same target as Takeda Pharmaceutical's Entyvio, a drug approved in more than 50 countries for ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. The findings, published Thursday in the journal Science, are promising enough that scientists at the National Institutes of Health, which funded the research, have already begun testing the Takeda drug, known generically as vedolizumab, in people newly infected with HIV. “The experimental treatment regimen appears to have given the immune systems of the monkeys the necessary boost to put the virus into sustained remission," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious diseases, part of the NIH, who co-led the study. Sustained remission - known as a "functional cure" - could have sweeping implications for people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus or HIV, which attacks the immune system.

Healthy monkeys at the California National Primate Research Center in Davis, California. A new drug combination helped stave off a monkey version of HIV for nearly two years after stopping all treatments, raising hopes for a functional cure for HIV, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.​

Highly effective treatments known as antiretroviral therapy push the virus down to undetectable levels in the blood, but they must be taken every day over a person's lifetime to remain effective, said Aftab Ansari of Emory University School of Medicine who co-lead the study. Ansari said the study was based on the understanding that in the early days of infection, HIV attacks a specific class of immune cells that congregate in large quantities in the gut. They theorized that if they could protect these immune cells, they could buy the immune system enough time to mount an effective response. To do this, the team tested an antibody that blocks a protein called alpha-4/beta-7 integrin that HIV uses to attack immune cells in the gut. For the study, they infected 18 monkeys with simian immunodeficiency virus or SIV, the monkey version of HIV. They then treated all of the animals with ART for 90 days, and, as it does in humans, the ART controlled the virus, reducing it to undetectable levels.

Antiretroviral drugs used in this stage of the experiment included Gilead's tenofovir and emtricitabine, sold in a combination drug for people as Truvada, and a Merck integrase inhibitor known as L-870812. In 11 monkeys, the scientists then gave infusions of the antibody for 23 weeks, and seven monkeys got a placebo. Three of the 11 monkeys developed a reaction to the treatment and had to stop the therapy. In the eight monkeys that got the treatment, six initially showed signs that SIV was rebounding, but eventually their immune systems were able to control the virus. In two others, the virus never rebounded. All eight have continued to suppress SIV to undetectable levels for up to 23 months after all treatment stopped. In the control group, SIV rebounded and all seven animals died. The study did not look at whether the monkeys were still able to transmit the virus, but studies in people have shown that reducing HIV to undetectable levels cuts transmission rates by nearly 100 percent.

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