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The Australian,,

WA discovery ‘could lead to a cure for HIV’

West Australian researchers have uncovered a process found to effectively control HIV that could lead to a cure for the deadly disease.

Martyn French, who led the team based at Royal Perth Hospital, said when the particular antibody, named by the group as plasmacytoid dendritic cell-reactive opsonophagocytosis antibody, was bound to the virus, it stimulated other cells in the immune system to kill the virus.

Professor French, who has 29 years of experience in the treatment and research of HIV, said the study was evidence that the process could effectively control the virus.

The process would be further studied so researchers could then apply findings to enhance a specific immune response in curing vaccines, he said.

“We’re working on the idea that you don’t use the antibodies to bind the virus directly and kill the virus, but you use antibodies that bind to the virus and then stimulate other cells in the immune system to kill the virus,” he said. “We’re the first group that’s taken this sort of approach to doing this.”

The group’s findings will be published by the American Association of Immunologists in its Journal of Immunology next month.

HIV is effectively controlled by antiretroviral drugs and patients could live “almost a normal life expectancy” but existing treatments don’t cure the virus, Professor French said.

He said many researchers trying to cure the infection focused on the use of a vaccine that would stimulate immune responses. “There’s still an incomplete understanding of what type of immune response needs to be stimulated by such vaccines,” he said.

The research was supported by University of California, San Francisco, professor Steven Deeks, who provided a majority of the 110 American and Australian blood plasma samples used in the study. Samples included those of patients who were able and unable to control the infection without treatment.

The research found there was a negative correlation when the amount of the antibody in the blood was related to the level of virus in the blood.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/wa-discovery-could-lead-to-a-cure-for-hiv/story-e6frg8y6-1227325573116