A 'kick and kill' method that drives the human immunodeficiency virus out of cells, leaving it accessible to natural killer cell injections, gives promise for an HIV cure.
The technique was shown to remove the virus in 40% of instances in laboratory experiments on 10 mice, according to a team from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
According to the United Nations, an estimated 38 million individuals worldwide are infected with HIV, with the virus responsible for 36 million fatalities in recent decades.
If developed and shown safe and successful in human studies, the notion might eliminate the need for people living with HIV to take antiretroviral medications on a continuous basis. HIV will remain latent in their system, hiding out in CD4+ T cells, which ordinarily aid in immune response coordination.
'Kick and kill' works by tricking the dormant virus in infected cells to reveal itself using a compound called 'SUW133', so that it can be targeted and eliminated.
When people with HIV stop taking their antiretroviral treatment, the virus can escape from these boltholes and carry on replicating itself in the body. It weakens the immune system and increases the risk of infections and cancer.
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