HIV Cure Research Involving Antifungal Cream Shows 'Promising' Signs
A common anti-fungal cream may hold the answers in effectively treating HIV in humans after clinical trials showed the treatment to effectively remove the HIV virus from cells.
The study was conducted at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School using the antifungal cream Ciclopirox and found that it was able to remove the HIV virus from cell cultures.
One positive that came about that is different from other HIV trials is that the virus did not reappear after the drug stopped being used, meaning that it is possible that this treatment may not hve to be administered for the duration of a person's life.
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Ciclopirox was approved by the Food and Drug Administration as safe for human use to treat foot fungus, but researchers found that it also blocks the essential function of the mitochondria, which results in the reactivation of the infected cell's pathway, which is not transferred to non-infected cells.
Earlier this year Dutch researchers revealed that they may be able to mass produce a treatment for HIV in the coming years after new research showed promising results.
The trials ongoing trials underway and are being facilitated by Dr. Ole Sogaard, a senior researcher at the Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark, who sees initial signs of the new method as "promising" while being optimistic that "finding a mass-distributable and affordable cure to HIV is possible."
"I am almost certain that we will be successful in releasing the reservoirs of HIV," Sogaard told AFP. "The challenge will be getting the patients' immune system to recognize the virus and destroy it. This depends on the strength and sensitivity of individual immune systems."
Clinical trials are currently being conducted in which they are attempting to remove the HIV virus from human DNA, allowing the virus to be overcome by the immune system. This works by releasing the HIV virus from the "reservoirs" it forms inside human DNA. Once the bond is broken, the virus is exposed in the cells and the body's immune system, after being given an immune booster, can eliminate the virus from the cells.
The trials have already proved so successful in laboratory in vitro studies, where human cells are used, that money has been slated by the Danish Research Council to begin clinical trials with humans.
