[ad_1]
Antiretroviral drugs have revolutionized the treatment of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, but they are not considered a cure. This is because HIV can hide in the body in "reservoirs" that can resurface at any time. That's why much of today's HIV research is focused on tackling HIV reservoirs.
Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill reported progress in their efforts to use immunotherapy – a technology closely associated with oncology – to eliminate HIV reservoirs.
The technique involves collecting T cells from HIV-infected patients, growing them outside the body to increase their population, and then injecting them back into the body. The team plans to combine cells with drugs that make latent HIV reservoirs visible to the immune system, so that T cells can find the virus and kill it. But first, they had to show that the first part of the process was well tolerated by patients – and they did, with a new study published in the journal Molecular Therapy.
The trial involved six HIV-positive patients who were taking antiretroviral therapy that reduced their viral load to undetectable levels. Each patient received two HIV-specific T cell infusions over two weeks.
RELATED: Gene editing is promising in the fight against HIV reservoirs
The treatment was well tolerated, reported the UNC team. In addition, researchers were able to measure an increase in antiviral activity in two of the patients, which they were able to link to T cells. The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health.
The test did not show a decrease in the size of latent reservoirs, probably because it was not powered: the UNC team did not show any decrease in the size of latent reservoirs, probably because it was not fueled: the UNC team did not show any decrease in the size of latent reservoirs, probably because it was not powered: the UNC team Patients were not treated with reversible drugs and the T cell assays they administered were low. In addition, they did not use strategies to expand the anti-HIV T cell population once they were reinjected into patients.
"This paves the way for the next step, which is to combine this approach of immunotherapy with a latency reversal therapy to get HIV out of its latent state, where it is invisible to the immune system. Immunotherapy, "said first author Julia Sung, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at the UNC.
T-cell therapies have generated a lot of excitement in the cancer world, thanks in large part to the recent FDA approval of two blood cancer treatments, Novartis Kymriah and Gilead's Yescarta. But early efforts to apply technology to HIV have failed to produce a therapeutic response.
UNC researchers have shown in previous studies that they can take cells from HIV-infected patients and use them to eliminate latent cells by exposing these cells to Zolinza, a chemotherapy drug known to reverse the disease. latency.
This is one of many approaches tested to eliminate HIV reservoirs. In April, a team at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center reported promising findings from an animal trial involving stem cells that were modified to include a CCR5 gene mutation, implicated in HIV resistance. When the cells were put back into macaques infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), an HIV-related disease, the reservoirs of viruses decreased.
The Salk Institute and Temple University teams have used CRISPR gene editing in a variety of ways to eliminate latent HIV from cells and prevent what remains to re-emerge.
The UNC is currently recruiting patients in a study that will combine Zolinza with their own HIV-specific T cells. Participants will receive 20 doses of chemotherapy and five T-cell infusions. The researchers hope to complete the study by 2021.
Source link
