'Shock And kill' Therapy Offers Fresh Hope For HIV Cure [STUDY]

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The HIV research community is optimistic about the promising "shock and kill" approach to eradicating HIV. The removal of all traces of the virus from an infected person's body would represent an actual cure for the virus (AIDS).

Another new small scale human trial of the treatment will commence this week in New York and two sister sites, in Germany and Denmark. The trial will combine an anti-cancer drug, romidepsin, with antiretroviral drugs, popularly known as ARVs.

Another small human study will start in January and then followed by a larger human shock and kill trial which will be conducted in June. Shock and kill combines standard ARVs with an immune booster, a combo that has been effective in test tube, animal and now human trials, according to Netnebraska.

The treatment flushes out and eradicates pockets of HIV that lie inactive inside dormant immune cells even as antiretroviral drugs reduce the actively reproducing virus to undetectable levels in the blood.

The new trials follow validating shock and kill data from University of California which San Francisco researchers shared at the HIV Cure Summit, held on December 1 2016 at UCSF.

 Dr. Rowena Johnston, vice-president for amfAR, in a post-summit interview with KQED said she feels a very real sense of optimism based on the evidence which shows that a cure can be achieved. "There is a fundamental understanding we have now of the barriers between us and a cure, and how we go about to solving the problems," she added.

In an upcoming study, a UCSF team will study whether an oral pill or IV drip will be more effective in delivering drugs to the tissue reservoirs where HIV hides. A separate observational study will monitor people who stop taking ARVs. The study is designed to serve as a reference for all HIV cure trials.

The mood at the HIV Cure Summit was one of cautious optimism. It was fueled in part by reports from the first human shock and kill trial in Britain.

UK scientists conducting a 50-person study announced in October that the first patient to complete the treatment had no detectable signs of the virus in his blood. The 44-year-old man was given Vorinostat, ARVs and vaccines to prod the immune system, according to PBS.

However, HIV scientists around the world have deemed any declaration of victory premature. They caution that more time and tissue samples are needed to judge the treatment's efficacy. The UK trial will be completed in 2018, and no results are expected until then.