Teasing HIV into submission

CHICAGO, Feb 5: The tentative results of a small human experiment offer a glimmer of possibility that the body's own defence system can b...

CHICAGO, Feb 5: The tentative results of a small human experiment offer a glimmer of possibility that the body8217;s own defence system can be trained to hold down the AIDS virus.

The clearly risky approach attempts to mimic the success of the much-talked-about 8220;Berlin Patient,8221; a newly infected German man who stopped and started AIDS therapy and eventually quit it entirely, only to discover that his virus had inexplicably disappeared. He has remained free of HIV for two years.

8220;I don8217;t see why others cannot become the Berlin Patient,8221;said Dr Franco Lori, head of the Research Institute for Genetic and Human Therapy at Georgetown University in Washington.

Lori8217;s team is one of a few exploring the idea that it may be possible to wean people away from the demanding regimen of AIDS medicines without actually curing them of their infections. Lori presented his findings yesterday at the sixth conference on retroviruses and opportunistic infections.

Some physicians are sceptical. They fear AIDS patients wholearn of these attempts will stop taking the drugs on their own 8212; with potentially deadly consequences. 8220;My concern is that this will be overplayed,8221; said Dr Robert Schooley of the University of Colorado.

8220;It sounds good to patients. Who wouldn8217;t want to stop treatment? But the real question is whether you can change the immune response. I worry patients will stop therapy. Whenever that happens, in my experience, the virus comes roaring back.8221;

Lori calls the approach stop and go. The idea: treat people with standard aids drugs until all signs of HIV vanish from the bloodstream. Withhold the medicines until the virus returns. Then give the drugs again. Keep repeating the cycle until eventually the virus never comes back.

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It probably won8217;t be eradicated entirely, so the theory goes, but the body8217;s immune defences will be able to keep it from the explosive growth that is HIV8217;s killing trademark.

Lori has tried the approach so far on three patients. While it8217;s still too soon to know whether it willwork, Lori finds the first few weeks8217; results promising. The interval before the virus returns is lengthening. Furthermore, he said that in more aggressive experiments on monkeys, the only practical nonhuman substitute for AIDS research, the approach seems to keep the virus at bay for good.