HIV/AIDS Cure News: Antibody that Destroys 99 Percent of HIV Strains in Primates to be Tested on Humans Next Year
An antibody that can effectively attack 99 percent of HIV strains and prevent infection of primates has been developed.
Scientists, the US National Institutes of Health, and the pharmaceutical company Sanofi have collaborated and succeeded in engineering an antibody that is built to attack three critical parts of the HIV virus, making it difficult for the virus itself to withstand the effects of the developed antibody.
It has been learned that varieties of HIV or its strains are comparable to those of influenza during a worldwide season of flu. This prompts the body's immune system to fight against an insurmountable number of strains of HIV.
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However, it has been discovered that, after years of infection, a few HIV patients' immune system develop the so-called "broadly neutralizing antibodies," which attack important part of the HIV virus and kill a large amount of HIV strains. Because of this, researchers studied and eventually developed the broadly neutralizing antibodies as a potential way to treat HIV or, at least, prevent future cases of infection.
While the research has turned out to be promising, with the International AIDS Society even dubbing it as an exciting breakthrough, it has yet to be tested in humans as the developed broadly neutralizing antibodies have only been tested on primates. According to reports, clinical trials on humans will begin in 2018.
The study on the potency of the broadly neutralizing antibodies, which had the researchers combining three antibodies, hence, referring to which as the "tri-specific antibody," is so promising as they are more potent and have a greater range of coverage as compared to any single naturally occurring antibody that has ever been discovered. The experiment carried out on 24 monkeys showed that none of those that received the tri-specific antibody developed an infection.
"We're getting 99% coverage, and getting coverage at very low concentrations of the antibody...it was quite an impressive degree of protection," said Dr. Gary Nabel, the chief scientific officer at Sanofi and one of the report authors, told the BBC News in an interview.
