Possible HIV cure overlooked?

[lgnd777]

I feel that in the efforts to treat HIV, a biotechnology answer may be the solution.  The pharmaceutical industry has the technology neccesary to clone antibodies that are active against HIV.    Overwhelming the virus in the blood stream with antibodies, and then prevention of reexposure, may be the answer neccesary to cure HIV.  Welcome to world war HIV.

[terpie82]

I agree lgnd777, overwhelming the virus in the bloodstream would be winning the battle on one front and a vaccine to prevent future exposures would be another. But there's also the genetics front where scientists are still finding ways to rid our genome of the latent viral genome that can still churn out more viruses soon after the viruses in our bloodstream are long gone (and that is the cure I'm anxiously waiting for), and as HIVworker pointed out in our past posts, the viral mutations makes it much more difficult. WWH indeed...in the end, humans always prevail, but when, no body knows 

[ryeguy]

A few very hopefull thoughts, thank you!

[Cliff]

I always thought antibodies (even those made by man) didn't work on HIV because of the structure of the virus?  Anyways, I do believe we will cure (not sure what form that will take) HIV.  I remain an optimist!

[J220]

Virionyx's goat-derived antibodies seem to be effective in fighting HIV in humans. A phase 2 is scheduled to begin shortly. Terpie, what is your take on PEHRG214?

PEHRG214, a Passive Immunotherapy Against HIV

PEHRG214 has been developed from observations that the body’s response to HIV is insufficient to eradicate the virus, yet certain animals seem to produce strong anti-HIV responses with antibodies detecting certain components of the virus which appear to be ignored by the human immune system. Goats are considered to be effective producers of the desired antibodies to HIV.

Specially bred goats, in isolated and disease-controlled conditions, have been immunised by the Company with extracts of the HIV virus, and then also with carefully developed synthetic HIV peptides. The resulting antibodies which are collected from the goats have been found to be strongly active against HIV and have been shown to kill the virus in the test tube.

A complex and detailed process has been developed by the Company to produce these special HIV and peptide enhanced antibodies in a reproducible fashion, which once prepared for human use, have been shown from prolonged laboratory studies to be safe for human use in HIV patients.

The main points of difference between PEHRG214 and other HIV drugs are: • Unique mechanism of action: The mechanism of anti-viral action of PEHRG214, which neutralises and inactivates the virus, differs from that of other anti-HIV treatments. Adding drugs of different modes of action to current combination therapies makes treatment of HIV more effective. With its unique anti-HIV mechanism, PEHRG214 provides the opportunity to enhance efficacy when added to standard drug treatments.

• Disguise: PEHRG214 targets HIV epitopes that do not naturally stimulate the human immune system thereby circumventing one of HIV’s most effective means of defence – disguise.

• Mutation: PEHRG214 binds to a number of sites on HIV which should hinder the virus’ natural ability to evade the drug by mutation. This is being carefully evaluated.

• Polyclonal: Therapies based on monoclonal antibodies suffer from the same problem as conventional drugs in that they only target one site on the virus. PEHRG214’s polyclonal antibodies enable it to attack a number of sites simultaneously thus increasing its likely effectiveness.

• Focus of attack: PEHRG214 provides antibodies produced externally and delivered to the patient through passive immunotherapy, thereby enabling the patients own immune system to reconstitute.

[otherplaces]

I find the most hope in these immune therapy trials where they alter the immune system in some way to give it an effective tool to kill HIV as it rises and continues to rise from latent cells. I don't know if anything has been overlooked. My understanding is that the immune therapies are using extremely cutting edge technology.

From what I've read our bodies do mount an attack against hiv. I believe hiv has a sugar coating that makes it difficult for our antibodies to attach to its surface to essentially mark it to be killed by the immune system. Nonetheless, our bodies have success to varying degrees in actually controlling the infection. I've found little literature on how we are able to effectively attack hiv before things move out of control.

I, of course, have hope for a cure. But in the shorter term I have hope that a cost effective therapy will be developed to allow our bodies to control the infection w/o meds. I find the cost of the disease and how tied we are to medical care to be just as upsetting as what's going on inside my body.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/07/AIDS.TMP&type=health

brian

[terpie82]

Hi J220, I found your post on PEHRG214 very exciting and made my brain smile A successful polyclonal approach would be an awesome breakthrough in HIV treatment and help millions of people who encounter drug resistance. The R&D of the use of antibody-base HIV theraphy (especially from another animal) may seem unprecedented and slow, but for good reason...the scientists have to make sure that when it is applied in vivo that it is truly HIV-antigen specific and not attack human antigens. I was not aware of such research at a phase 2 stage, so thanks for bringing it up! I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Yes Brian, it is my understanding that our own bodies do mount an attack again the virus, varying it may be (depending on the individual and the HIV strain or existing/acquired mutations). It is my belief that a cure will attack the lytic viruses (those found in the blood stream and tissues) and attack the viral genome within the nucleus of our cells...we already have a number of meds/treatments for the first approach, it's the 2nd that is pissing off all the scientists and those of us living with HIV.