{"id":333241,"date":"2025-12-07T15:36:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T15:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/aerospace\/a-new-trial-put-immune-system-boosting-therapies-to-the-test-to-fight-hiv-raising-hopes-for-keeping-the-virus-at-bay\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T15:36:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T15:36:15","slug":"a-new-trial-put-immune-system-boosting-therapies-to-the-test-to-fight-hiv-raising-hopes-for-keeping-the-virus-at-bay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=333241","title":{"rendered":"A New Trial Put Immune System-Boosting Therapies to the Test to Fight HIV, Raising Hopes for Keeping the Virus at Bay"},"content":{"rendered":"


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In the small study, seven out of ten participants maintained low levels of HIV for several months after receiving the experimental treatment and stopping their usual daily medications<\/h2>\n
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\n \"Marta\n <\/div>\n
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Marta Hill<\/a><\/p>\n

– Staff Contributor<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\"microscope\n <\/picture>
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A microscope image of HIV particles, in red, replicating from an infected cell, in blue.
\n NIAID \/ NIH via Flickr<\/a><\/span>
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After receiving a series of immunotherapies, most people with HIV in a small study kept their virus levels low for several months\u2014and one person for more than a year and a half\u2014without their usual medication.<\/p>\n

The study, published on World AIDS Day, December 1, in the journal Nature<\/a><\/em>, offers hope about long-lasting HIV treatments, and could help pave the way to a cure.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am very excited about the findings. The study, although small, will drive new directions in the field,\u201d Sharon Lewin<\/a>, an HIV researcher at the Doherty Institute at the University of Melbourne who was not involved in the new work, wrote in an email to the Washington Post<\/a><\/em>\u2019s Carolyn Y. Johnson. \u201cThis is something the field urgently needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study does not provide a solution for HIV. It involved few participants and lacked a control group.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut this is proof, in people, that we can induce an effective immune response,\u201d Steven Deeks<\/a>, a study co-author and HIV researcher at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), tells the San Francisco Chronicle<\/em><\/a>\u2019s Erin Allday. \u201cThe two big questions now are, what exactly happened and how can we make it better?\u201d<\/p>\n

HIV is estimated to affect more than 40 million people<\/a> worldwide. Treatment typically involves antiretroviral therapy (ART) that stops the virus from reproducing, but the medication usually needs to be taken daily for life. No widely available cure currently exists, although researchers have reported a few instances of patients with HIV being cured or going into long-term remission, including a case study also published December 1 in Nature<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Did you know? The first person cured of HIV<\/h4>\n

Timothy Ray Brown, also known as the \u201cBerlin Patient,\u201d is considered the first person to be cured of HIV<\/a>. That happened through a stem cell transplant in 2007 to treat his acute myeloid leukemia. The donor had a genetic mutation that prevented HIV from entering cells.\u00a0Unfortunately, Brown died<\/a> from leukemia in 2020.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In search of a longer-lasting treatment, the ten participants in the new study first received a vaccine to get their immune systems to fight dormant HIV in their bodies. After that, they took a drug that activates immune responses and two rounds of anti-HIV antibodies, proteins that attack the virus.<\/p>\n

Then, they stopped their daily ART medications.<\/p>\n

Three participants\u2019 virus levels immediately shot back up, which is expected after stopping standard treatment. But the other seven showed slower rebounds in HIV levels. The virus levels of one of those participants remained low for more than 18 months.<\/p>\n

The team found that the participants whose HIV levels stayed in check for a long time had faster immune responses than those whose virus levels rebounded quickly. Their T cells, a type of immune cell, were ready and eager to multiply into the body\u2019s guardians.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt turns out the \u2018controllers\u2019 had T cells that were able to expand dramatically once they ran into the virus,\u201d study co-author Rachel Rutishauser<\/a>, an immunologist and infectious-disease physician at UCSF, says in a statement<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s like they were hanging out waiting for their target, kind of like a cat getting ready to pounce on a mouse.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Tom Perrault, who had taken the standard HIV medication every day since 2005 before he participated in the UCSF study, the new work offered a glimmer of hope, he tells the\u00a0Post<\/em>. His HIV rebounded, but slower than expected.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat a gift this will be for the world if and when this would work,\u201d Perrault says.<\/p>\n

Another\u00a0study\u00a0published December 1 in Nature<\/a><\/em> investigated whether long-lasting responses to anti-HIV antibodies are linked to strong immune responses triggered by T cells. Researchers looked at blood samples from 12 participants who received the antibodies and found that those who had controlled virus levels had HIV-targeting T cells that could rapidly multiply and turn into other types of T cells.<\/p>\n

Both immune-response studies are preliminary and have limitations, but \u201cthe convergence of findings across independent studies is encouraging,\u201d writes Jonathan Li<\/a>, an infectious-disease physician-scientist at Brigham and Women\u2019s Hospital and Harvard Medical School who wasn\u2019t involved in the new work, in an accompanying commentary<\/a> in Nature<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe emerging vision is not of a single \u2018silver bullet\u2019 for ART-free HIV control, but of an orchestrated immune strategy\u2014one that fortifies the body\u2019s own defenses to keep HIV in check,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n

The journey to immunotherapy-based\u00a0remission from HIV<\/a>\u00a0is far from over, but current research is increasing our understanding of how to fight the virus.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a chance to try to cure this thing. Of course I\u2019m going to do it,\u201d Perrault, who lives with HIV, tells the Chronicle<\/em>. \u201cThey don\u2019t cure this thing unless people do what I did. To have a chance at a cure, and to know that my participation could lead to it\u2014that\u2019s spectacular.\u201d<\/p>\n

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