New breakthrough in finding a way to neutralize HIV virus

Scientists attending the International AIDS Conference in Vancouver, Canada, continued to present many new inventions, bringing hope to the search for an effective drug to prevent the disease of the century, HIV/AIDS.

An HIV patient in Africa. (Photo: AFP)

At this conference, scientists reported progress in gene therapy and antibody therapy to neutralize HIV. These are studies aimed at finding answers to the question of whether some people with HIV can control the amount of HIV virus after stopping treatment, or the hypothesis of a vaccine that can destroy HIV virus in the patient's body.

Researcher Christopher Peterson of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, has announced a new discovery in the search for a way to prevent the HIV virus, which is to introduce modified stem cells into the body with experimental subjects being monkeys.

According to Mr. Peterson, this research has shown quite positive results when the "modified" cells have prevented the HIV virus from entering the immune system. Mr. Peterson said that with enough protective cells, the HIV virus cannot spread. This brings the prospect of a feasible treatment method.

Another study led by John Mascola of the US National Institutes of Health focused on the activity of HIV-1 monoclonal antibodies in the bodies of eight HIV patients. The results showed that after three months of receiving a dose of the antibody, the virus in the serum of six out of eight patients tended to decrease, from 10 to 50 times.

The bodies of the other two people could not absorb HIV-1 antibodies because a type of HIV virus in their bodies resisted HIV-1. Mr. Mascola said that there could be many ways to use antibodies in the treatment of HIV patients, including destroying the virus reservoirs in the patient's cells.

Although the new findings have not yet yielded a feasible treatment method, experts say this is a solid foundation for moving forward with other larger-scale research projects, bringing more prospects in treating and preventing the deadly disease HIV/AIDS./.

According to Vietnam+