Health in the future: HIV self-destructs with a 'mix'

Israeli researchers have discovered a ‘mix' of peptides that makes HIV self-destruct in a Petri dish.

The authors note, the mix "stimulates integration together with the protease inhibitor Ro 31-8959" and "caused apoptotic cell death of HIV infected cells with total extermination of the virus," plus "this combination did not have any effect on non-infected cells."

Abraham Loyter, PhD, of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, led the study and said, "Whilst this research is promising, a major caveat with these studies is that they are preliminary. So far these experiments have only been shown to 'cure' HIV from small dishes of cultured cells in the authors' laboratory, but the findings are an exciting development in the quest to eradicate this devastating global pandemic." 

Loyter et al's findings are only at the first stage of working towards a "novel approach to specifically promote death of HIV-1 infected cells" but there is a real possibility that "a new and general anti-viral therapy" is possible in the future.

Also researchers in North Carolina have discovered that HIV-1 in blood 'evolves' in the body and produces a different strain in semen which can also lead to new approaches to HIV therapies in the future.

Full study, "Specific eradication of HIV-1 from infected cultured cells": http://www.aidsrestherapy.com/content/7/1/31
Full study, "HIV Populations In Semen Arise Through Multiple Mechanisms": http://www.plospathogens.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.ppat.1001053