The researchers found that HIV can simply ‘turn off’ fully functional T-cells by flipping a molecular switch on the cells. In test tube studies, however, the scientists showed that they could reinvigorate the killer T-cells by blocking that inhibitory switch, which is called programmed death-1 (PD-1). The findings by the researchers were published in the journal Nature.
The study’s senior author, Bruce Walker, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital, said that clinical testing of drugs that block the PD-1 switch could begin very soon, since such drugs exist already.
However, Mr Walker also cautioned that these kinds of drugs could cause serious side effects, including autoimmune reactions that trigger the immune system to attack the body. Mr Walker added that the researchers’ findings are also likely to have application in understanding other chronic viral diseases.
“It’s long been known that people with HIV infection have a lot of HIV-specific immune cells that one would think would be actively combating the virus,” said Mr Walker. “But a major puzzle has been that even in late-stage illness, when one can still measure great numbers of these immune cells, they don’t seem to be controlling the virus at all.”