A new experimental treatment originally designed for blood cancer patients could mark a major step forward in HIV research. Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, told The New York Times that two people in an early clinical trial achieved undetectable HIV levels after receiving a single infusion of engineered immune cells.
Full findings are expected to be presented soon at the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy conference in Boston. The treatment works by removing a patient’s immune cells and modifying them to recognize and attack HIV before reinfusing them into the body. Trial participants stopped taking antiretroviral medications after the treatment and still maintained undetectable HIV levels. Some patients reportedly remained undetectable for up to two years after one infusion.
Dr. Steve Deeks, who led the trial, told the newspaper, “It is inspiration and a potential road map to get to where we need to go.” The same type of cellular therapy has already been used successfully for years in treating certain blood cancers, including leukemia. While HIV treatment has dramatically improved over the past four decades, researchers say this experimental therapy could eventually move science closer to a functional cure.
Dr. James Riley, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania, told the Times that “Cancer will always probably be the pioneer in this stuff, because of the incredible unmet medical need.” This new work comes after research announced earlier this year by the Center for Cancer and Immunity Research at Children’s National Hospital, which showed promise in HIV-specific T cell therapy reducing hidden reservoirs of HIV in six adult patients.
