HIV can be stopped dead in its tracks using a revolutionary technique for "silencing" genes, a study has shown. The discovery raises the possibility of a treatment for HIV that does not involve potentially toxic anti-viral drugs.
Scientists have found that RNA interference – where genes are artificially silenced using a natural molecular switch in the cell – can inhibit the replication of HIV in human blood cells.
Professor Premlata Shankar of Texas Tech University, who carried out the work when she was at Harvard Medical School in Boston, said: "RNA interference has great potential as an antiviral treatment... We think it has real promise, but there is a lot more to be done."
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Unique Results from Swedish Study of HIV vaccine
A Swedish HIV vaccine study conducted by researchers at Karolinska Institutet (KI), Karolinska University Hospital and the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control (SMI) has produced surprisingly good results. Over 90 per cent of the subjects in the phase 1 trials developed an immune response to HIV.
"Never has such a good result been seen with a vaccine of this type," says Professor Eric Sandström, Chief Physician at Karolinska University Hospital.
The trial subjects were vaccinated on three occasions with this vaccine using a needle-free method of injection. In order to enhance the effect, the researchers also gave the subjects a fourth dose of a vaccine in which parts of the HIV virus DNA had been integrated into another virus (vaccinia = the cowpox virus). This vaccine-based HIV vaccine is produced by the USA's National Institutes of Health and was donated for use in this Swedish study.
"Our vaccine is designed in such a way that it's able to protect against many of the circulating HIV types in Africa and the West," says Professor Britta Wahren at the SMI/KI.
Over 90 per cent of the trial subjects developed an immune response to HIV, and the vaccines have been tolerated well.
For further information, please contact:
Gunnel Biberfeld, Professor of Immunology, SMI and KI. Phone: +46-8-457 26 60, +46-73-346 26 60. E-mail: gunnel.biberfeld@smi.ki.se
Eric Sandström, Professor of Dermatovenerology, Chief Physician at Karolinska University Hospital. Phone: +46-8-616 25 71, +46-70-484 60 37. E-mail: eric.sandstrom@karolinska.se
Britta Wahren, Professor of Virology, SMI and KI. Phone:+46-8-457 26 30, +46-70-674 15 27. E-mail: britta.wahren@smi.ki.se
Last modified by: Jenny Hermansson 2006-08-31
Scientists have constructed a custom enzyme that reverses the process by which the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) inserts its genetic material into host DNA, suggesting that treatment with similar enzymes could potentially rid infected cells of the virus. In tests on cultured human tissue, the mutated enzyme, Tre recombinase, snipped HIV DNA out of chromosomes.
Curing real infections by this or any other technique, however, would require mastering one of HIV's sneakiest tricks—its ability to hide from the immune system by laying dormant for months or years in host cells.
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