American scientists have developed a new method of treating HIV

Scientists in the United States have developed a comprehensive immunotherapeutic approach to treating HIV, which allows not only to detect the virus that is hiding in the patient’s immune system, but also to destroy it forever, and this is the first step towards creating a vaccine against HIV.

Фото: Depositphotos

According to Air force, The results of an experiment conducted by scientists at the University of Pittsburgh, were published in early April in the medical publication EBioMedicine.

The key to developing this treatment was immune cells designed to recognize a completely different virus: cytomegalovirus.

To confirm the effectiveness of this method of treatment, more clinical studies are needed, however, as scientists believe, the method developed by them will help in the future to create a vaccine that will make constant taking of antiretroviral therapy unnecessary.

Modern highly active antiretroviral therapy quite effectively suppresses the immunodeficiency virus, however, it is accompanied by many side effects, and when it is abandoned, HIV almost always returns.

"Find and destroy"

“Many scientists are trying to develop a treatment for HIV, and all these methods are built around the model of “search and destroy” - that is, identifying the virus and destroying it. Several promising therapies are now being developed that can effectively destroy the virus, but the cherished goal remains identifying the cells in which it hides, says Robbie Maillard, one of the authors of the study.

Mayard and his colleagues decided to study the behavior of another virus, which is also capable of passing into a latent form. It is a cytomegalovirus that can cause eye diseases and other serious illnesses, but is usually well controlled by the immune system. Its carriers are more than 50% of the adult population of the planet, and among HIV patients, carriers of this virus are 95%.

Фото: Depositphotos

According to scientists, some people have about 20% T-helpers able to calculate the cytomegalovirus. It is in these cytomegalovirus-specific immune cells that, according to scientists, HIV can hide.

“So we tried to develop an immunotherapy that not only targeted HIV, but also activated T-helper cells that have the ability to detect cytomegalovirus,” says study co-author Charles Rinaldo.

During the experiment, many liters of blood from patients with HIV had to be examined to find these specific T-helpers.

“It is necessary to collect a lot of blood from patients undergoing highly active antiretroviral therapy to find the T helper cells in which the immunodeficiency virus is hidden. After all, it could be just one cell out of 10 million,” says study author Jean Christophe.

"The Swiss knife of immunotherapy"

At the same time, scientists identified another group of immune cells—dendritic cells, which are a kind of “coordinators” of the immune system. These are key cells in developing cancer treatments.

Scientists have developed a special type of dendritic cells (MDC1) to force the immune system to kill HIV. The task of these cells was to activate cytomegalovirus-specific T-helpers, in which latent HIV strains could potentially be hidden. Thanks to the activation of T-helper cells, scientists were able to extract HIV from shelters.

“With the help of MDC1, we solved two problems at once - both find and destroy [HIV]. This is the Swiss Army knife of immunotherapy,” says Robbie Maillard.

Recall that a recent study found that a trip to the subway of New York can boost risk of getting cancer.

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