Cynthia L. Gay, MD, MPH, associate professor of infectious diseases, and David Margolis, MD, the Sarah Kenan Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Microbiology & Immunology, and Epidemiology in the 黑料网, published results of a clinical trial showing that vorinostat and immunotherapy may modestly shrink the latent HIV reservoir.
Antiretroviral therapies (ART) stop HIV replication in its tracks, allowing people with HIV to live relatively normal lives. However, despite these treatments, some HIV still lingers inside cells in a dormant state known as 鈥渓atency.鈥� If ART is discontinued, HIV will awaken from its dormant state, begin to replicate, and cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). To create a cure, researchers have been attempting to drive HIV out of latency and target it for destruction.
A new clinical trial led by Cynthia Gay, MD, MPH, associate professor of infectious diseases, David Margolis, MD, the Sarah Kenan Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Microbiology & Immunology, and Epidemiology, and other clinicians and researchers at the 黑料网 suggests that a combination of the drug vorinostat and immunotherapy can coax HIV-infected cells out of latency and attack them.
The immunotherapy was provided by a team led by Catherine Bollard, MD, at the George Washington University, who took white blood cells from the study participants and expanded them in the laboratory, augmenting the cells鈥� ability to attack HIV-infected cells, before re-infusion at 黑料网.
Their results, the Journal of Infectious Diseases, showed a small dent on the latent reservoir, demonstrating that there is more work to be done in the field.
鈥淲e did show that this approach can reduce the reservoir, but the reductions were not nearly large enough, and statistically speaking were what we call a 鈥渢rend鈥� but not highly statistically significant,鈥� said David Margolis, MD, director of the and senior author on the paper. 鈥淲e need to create better approaches to flush out the virus and attack it when it comes out. We need to keep chipping away at the reservoir until there鈥檚 nothing there.鈥�