HIV Digest	HIV Digest Archive

HIV has learned how to lie dormant in the body and escape the attack of AIDS drugs. "The only way we are going to cure this disease is by getting rid of the latent virus," said Dr. Roger Pomerantz. New research by Pomerantz and colleagues at Thomas Jefferson University's Center for Human Virology and Biodefence suggests a cocktail of interleukins and HIV drugs might offer the best hope for eradicating the virus.

Interleukin (IL)-7 can bring some HIV strains out of hiding, the researchers reported recently. Already, therapy with IL-5 has shown promise in making HIV vulnerable.

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The virologists took blood from HIV-positive patients receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy­ all of whom had undetectable HIV levels­ and tested the ability of various drugs and proteins to stimulate the latent virus. The most effective was IL-7, especially on HIV strains that did not respond well to IL-2.

The goal of the research, said Pomerantz, was finding "an approach where we can stimulate HIV out of its latent state so it can be killed by antiviral drugs and the immune system." He described the process as "a little bit like treating cancer. You give induction treatment to stop the viral load and then use this approach to get rid of the residual disease, much like chemotherapy."

Killing all the virus, however, will likely require using many drugs in combination. "We may have to combine IL-2 with IL-7 and other agents to get the reservoirs of the virus," Pomerantz said.

Treatment with interleukin appears to be safe, said Pomerantz, who hopes to get approval to use it on HIV patients within one to two years.

Editor's Note: from the BBC News