Cancer Immunotherapy Flushes HIV Out of Hiding

[Jim Allen]

Interesting find. Although, it seems given the side effects it's not something to be considered in people living with HIV who don't require cancer treatment.

https://www.poz.com/article/cancer-immunotherapy-can-flush-hiv-hiding

Keytruda can activate T cells that harbor latent HIV, a possible step toward a functional cure.

In Short:

A widely used cancer immunotherapy drug can flush latent HIV out of its hiding places and could potentially be used in combination with other types of therapy to achieve long-term remission, according to research published in Science Translational Medicine.

“Being able to stop HIV from hiding in cells is an important part of finding an HIV cure, and this signifies exciting progress,” said International AIDS Society president Adeeba Kamarulzaman, MBBS.

People with HIV and cancer who were treated with the anti-PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor Keytruda (pembrolizumab) saw an increase in their HIV viral load, suggesting that the drug activated resting T cells that contain HIV blueprints and reversed viral latency.

“We’re endeavoring to ascertain the effect anti-PD-1 has on the HIV-specific killer T cells in the hope that as well as reversing HIV latency, it will also rev up the immune system to kill the HIV-infected cells in the way it does with cancer,” senior study author Sharon Lewin, MD, of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity at the University of Melbourne in Australia, said in a press release.

[CircularNatural]

Sounds promising 

[Da2020]

Great news indeed.