The cure for HIV, the latest developments of our scientists. Sudden breakthroughs in the search for an HIV vaccine

Antiretroviral therapy is a treatment that can significantly prolong the life of an HIV-infected person. But such drugs are expensive and have strong side effects. Therefore, researchers do not stop trying to find a new cure for HIV, which can once and for all reduce the number of viral particles in the body of an infected person. And just recently, at a conference in Australia on retroviruses and associated infections, a sensational announcement was made!

Has a new cure for HIV infection been found?

A group of Catalan scientists managed to achieve good results in the fight against HIV through using a special vaccine created at Oxford University. The study involved 15 volunteers. Each of them received four vaccinations. The first vaccine is for HIV, the other three are doses of romidepsin, an anti-cancer drug that can awaken inactive viruses outside the bloodstream.

Why awaken dormant viruses outside of the bloodstream? The fact is that the cure for HIV 2017 actively fights only those viruses that are in the blood. Viruses scattered throughout the tissues of the body, it may not affect if they are not previously activated.

This combination of vaccines showed good results. Finding traces of the human immunodeficiency virus in the blood of 5 out of 15 subjects has not been possible for 7 to 30 weeks (). Despite the fact that volunteers refused to take antiretroviral drugs. This gives hope that the cure for HIV 2017 will soon be in the hands of scientists.

The combined use of vaccination and specific drugs that can neutralize latent cells of the virus gives hope for advances in the development of a working treatment for HIV infection, - Beatriz Mothe, author of the presentation of the IrsiCaixa-HIVACAT method, Hospital Germans Trias i Pujol at a conference in Australia

But scientists still have to improve their methodology, because 100% of the result from HIV medicine February 2017 still did not show. Listen to the original recording of the presentation (on English language) you can follow the link.

For expert opinions on new treatments, check out this YouTube video:

Mice cured of HIV?

An article about another potentially effective treatment for HIV was published Jan. 18 in Science Translational Medicine. American scientists from Rockefeller University decided to test a new 2017 HIV drug on mice. To do this, the rodents were subjected to certain modifications to make their immune system similar to the human.

The immunodeficiency virus infects a cell of the human immune system. Photo © Wikimedia Commons

The mice were then infected with the human immunodeficiency virus and then treated with three types of antibodies. The antibodies used in the study were produced by the immune system of one patient who had been collaborating with Rockefeller University for 10 years.

What do antibodies and a new drug for HIV infection 2017? Scientists explain that in infected people the immune system produces antibodies, the task of which is to detect the virus and neutralize it. But because HIV has a high mutation rate, antibodies cannot effectively deal with it. After all, antibodies are not produced immediately, but after months or years.

Do you know, ? It is important!

AIDS virus. Photo NIAID, CC BY

For 10 years, the researchers managed to identify three types of antibodies at once, which were sent for the treatment of infected rodents. What was the surprise of the researchers when the virus began to lose and after the end of the study, most of the test subjects had no virus in their blood! The authors of the study are convinced that after certain modifications, this approach can be applied to humans.

These are the latest news about the cure for HIV 2017. What do you think about this? Do you believe that scientists are close to a grand breakthrough in medicine? Voice your opinion in the comments and be sure to share this article with your friends. And also read - it's good to know!

An international team of scientists has found a way to overcome the main obstacle that has stalled the development of an HIV vaccine: the inability to generate long-lived immune cells that stop a viral infection.

A Thai study published back in 2009 found that an experimental HIV vaccine reduced human infection rates by 31%. This made it possible to cautiously assume that in the near future it will be possible to obtain a vaccine with much more high level efficiency. However, the main obstacle to the creation of such a vaccine is that the immune response obtained with its help was very short-lived. A group of scientists from the UK, France, USA and the Netherlands, led by Professor Jonathan Heeney from the Laboratory of Viral Zoonotics at the University of Cambridge, managed to find out the cause of this obstacle, and find a potential way to overcome it. .

How HIV works

Once a virus enters a cell, its only purpose is to create multiple copies of itself in order to infect other cells, spreading throughout the body. HIV is famous for the fact that the gp140 protein on its outer shell targets the CD4 receptors on the surface of lymphocytes - T-helpers, the main regulators of the immune system. They produce important signals for other types of immune cells: B cells, which produce antibodies, and killer T cells, which kill virus-infected cells.

By selectively targeting CD4 receptors on T-helper cells, HIV disables the command and control center of the immune system, thereby preventing it from effectively responding to infection. The virus doesn't even need to get inside the T-cells and destroy them: it just paralyzes them.

The main "weapon" of HIV has become a component of the vaccine

The gp140 envelope proteins of the human immunodeficiency virus may become a key component of vaccines to protect against HIV infection. The body's immune system finds this protein and generates antibodies that coat the surface of the virus and thereby prevent it from attacking T-helpers. If the effect of the vaccine lasts long enough, then with the help of T-helper cells, the human body should learn to independently produce antibodies that neutralize most HIV strains and thus be able to protect people from infection.

Previous studies have shown that vaccination with the gp140 protein of the outer envelope of the virus leads to the launch of B cells that produce antibodies to the virus, but only on short period time. This time was too short to receive enough antibodies that protect against HIV infection for a long period.

Professor Jonathan Heaney concluded that the binding of gp140 to CD4 receptors on T-helper cells is probably the cause of this problem. He suggested that by preventing gp140 from attaching to the CD4 receptor, it would be possible to lengthen the period of the vaccine. Two studies published in the Journal of Virology have proven that this approach works, delivering the desired immune response for over a year.

“For a vaccine to work, its effects must be long-term,” says Professor Haney. “Vaccination every 6 months is too impractical. We wanted to develop a vaccine that creates long-lived antibody-producing cells. And we found a way to do it."

A small clue to a big mystery

The scientists found that adding a tiny specific protein to the gp140 protein blocks its binding to the CD4 receptor and therefore prevents T-helper cell paralysis at early stages immune response. This small patch was just one of several strategies to modify the gp140 protein for an HIV vaccine. It was developed by a group led by Susan Barnett.

This little key, added to a vaccine containing gp140 protein, is much better at stimulating long-lasting B cell responses, increasing their ability to recognize and produce specific antibodies against different viral envelope contours. This new approach allow for the foreseeable future the development of an HIV vaccine that gives the immune system enough time for B cells to build the necessary protective antibodies.

“B cells needed to buy time to develop highly effective neutralizing antibodies. In previous studies, B-cell responses were so short that they disappeared before they could complete all the changes needed to create silver bullets for the HIV virus,” adds Professor Haney. “Our discovery will significantly improve B-cell responses to an HIV vaccine. We hope that our study will significantly advance the development of a valid, long-term HIV vaccine.” The team of scientists expects to receive additional funding in the near future in order to begin testing the vaccine in humans.

The development of an HIV vaccine has been announced more than once

This is not the first time scientists have announced that they are close to creating a vaccine against HIV. However, until 2013, all statements turned out to be premature: all vaccines, on the creation of which huge amounts of money and time were spent, were not only ineffective, but in some cases even increased the likelihood of contracting HIV.

In 2013, scientists from the Duke University School of Medicine managed to get closer to creating universal vaccine from HIV (/mednovosti/news/2013/04/04/hivvaccine/), for the first time not only tracking the process of origin, maturation and interaction of neutralizing antibodies with the virus, but also finding out the conditions under which their production becomes possible.

In the same year, scientists announced that they had succeeded in ridding 50% of experimental rhesus monkeys of the immunodeficiency virus.

In 2014, Novosibirsk virologists announced their readiness to start the second phase of clinical trials of their experimental HIV vaccine CombiHIVvac. At the end of 2015, scientists from St. Petersburg tested the DNA-4 vaccine on volunteers infected with HIV. The author of the vaccine development, director of the St. Petersburg Biomedical Center, Doctor of Biology, Professor Andrei Petrovich KOZLOV, argued that with the successful completion of clinical trials, the DNA-4 vaccine could enter the market as early as 2020.

What stage is the Russian HIV vaccine at, how evolutionary theory can revolutionize the fight against cancer, and what new biological phenomenon discovered by Russian scientists contributes to this.

These issues were discussed at the Research Institute of Experimental Diagnosis and Tumor Therapy (EDiTO) of the Russian Cancer Research Center named after N.N. N. N. Blokhin, where the seminar of the Expert Club "Sum of Technologies" was held «Biotechnologies in development medicines: is there a place for “Big bio-science” in Russia?”. The seminar was attended by the Director of the Biomedical Center in St. Petersburg Andrey Kozlov and the head of the laboratory of transgenic preparations of the Research Institute of EDiTO of the Federal State Budgetary Institution “N.N. N. N. Blokhin Vyacheslav Kosorukov.

In Russia, there are almost 1 million people infected with HIV, of which only a quarter receive treatment. The state spends 30 billion rubles a year on this, said at a seminar Andrey Kozlov. For the annual treatment of all, 120 billion rubles are needed, despite the fact that the number of patients is growing all the time. According to the scientist, it is difficult to find such means, so we need vaccines, immunotherapeutic drugs that will cure the disease.

“An important task of medicine is to combat the spread of HIV infection and other chronic diseases such as tuberculosis, cancer and hepatitis C. In the last century, acute infectious diseases The challenge now is to defeat AIDS. If you solve it, then it will help to cope with others. chronic diseases”, Andrey Kozlov noted.

Under his leadership, the Biomedical Center managed to find out exactly where the virus entered the USSR in the 1980s. “It was a whole molecular investigation,” the scientist emphasized. “The virus entered through Odessa.” According to him, through another Ukrainian city - Nikolaev - another subtype of the virus entered our country. It has not received much distribution. Now in Russia, people are infected with subtype A virus, and its variability is low. “It is impossible to make a vaccine against the HIV virus all over the world, since it is very heterogeneous in the world. In Russia, the virus is homogeneous, so there is a chance to make a vaccine” Andrey Kozlov said.

At the biomedical center HIV vaccine has been in development since the 2000s. So far, this is the only vaccine in Russia that has passed phase II clinical trials. In phase I, it showed its harmlessness and immunogenicity (capable of inducing an immune response). “In some patients, viral reservoirs have collapsed. The result has been obtained, and if we develop it, we will cure patients from the virus.”, - the biologist noted the results of the II phase. He emphasized that it was developed therapeutic vaccine against HIV - for the treatment of patients, and not for the prevention of infection: “On preventive vaccine it would take much more money". According to the scientist, the problem is also the fact that ten second phases must take place in the country at the same time. “Dozens of candidates are being tested abroad, and only one in Russia”- Andrey Kozlov noted. Science Adviser to the Chairman of the Management Board of RUSNANO Management Company Sergey Kalyuzhny expressed the opinion that in addition to financial barriers, vaccine trials may also have bureaucratic barriers.

During the lecture, Andrei Kozlov focused on another intractable human disease - malignant tumors. The world is constantly testing new and anti-cancer drugs. New treatment courses effective methods, for example, using dendritic cells, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and are available to essentially millionaires. According to the scientist, a new ideology of fighting cancer is gaining popularity in the world - not to destroy it, but to stop its development in the body. This ideology, in particular, can be realized with the help of a biological phenomenon discovered by St. Petersburg scientists: new genes can be born in tumors. For example, analogues of the genes responsible for the development of mammary glands in humans have been found in tumors in fish. In other words, if they only originated in fish, then in the process of evolution useful features acquired from primates.

Already in humans, scientists have discovered 12 new genes that other animals do not have. These genes are so new that they may not have any function, and only show up in tumors, never in healthy tissues. That is, with their help, you can selectively affect the diseased organ. “These are potential molecular targets. With these genes, we can't kill the tumor, but we can contain it. Make the tumor fall asleep", explained the idea practical application evolutionary new genes Andrey Kozlov. According to him, a vaccine based on such a PBOV1 gene is currently undergoing phase II clinical trials in the United States and is potentially effective even against metastases, and the scientist himself is the author of the corresponding patent.

Scientific report by Andrey Kozlov practical advice for young scientists, graduate students and students added Vyacheslav Kosorukov.

According to him, being engaged in applied science in the field of biomedicine, it is necessary to clearly answer a number of questions, without which it is impossible to succeed in the implementation of the development. One of key points- who to involve in the project when it goes to clinical trials. “When starting a project, immediately decide with whom you will do it next. You can't do preclinical research with public money.", - he stressed, specifying that grants can cover only a third of the required funding. According to Kosorukov, the missing funding can only be obtained from interested pharmaceutical companies.

When will there be a complete cure for HIV - all the major latest scientific developments in the treatment of infection

Modern antiretroviral therapy has made HIV infection a chronic disease, but the goal for the near future is to find a cure for complete cure from HIV. We reviewed progress in HIV treatment in 2018, bringing together the most promising developments and directions for finding a cure for them. latest news on the fight against the human immunodeficiency virus.

Per recent times antiretroviral drugs have been improved, their dosage reduced, and HIV vaccines are under development, but a complete cure for HIV has not yet been achieved. Several organizations are pushing for the development of the first functional tool that leaves people living with HIV healthy and drug-free by 2020. But how close are we to achieving this goal? Let's look at the most advanced technologies for a complete cure for HIV.

Stopping HIV replication

One of the most modern methods HIV treatment aims to suppress the ability of the virus to replicate its RNA and make more copies of itself. This approach is commonly used to treat herpetic infection, and although it does not completely get rid of the virus, it can stop its spread. The French company Abivax showed last year in clinical trials that this approach could lead to the development of a functional HIV drug.

Key to its potential is that it can target a reservoir of HIV viruses that lurk in an inactive state inside infected cells.

“Current therapy suppresses the circulating virus by blocking the formation of new viruses, but they do not affect the reservoir. Once you stop taking the medication, the virus comes back in 10-14 days,” says Hartmut Ehrlich, CEO Abivax.

"ABX464 is the first drug candidate ever shown to shrink the HIV reservoir."

The drug, called ABX464, binds to a specific sequence in the virus's RNA, inhibiting its replication. In phase 2a, several patients were given the drug in addition to antiretroviral therapy. Eight of 15 patients treated with ABX464 showed a 25% to 50% reduction in the HIV reservoir at 28 days, compared with no reduction in those who took antiretroviral therapy alone.

Ehrlich emphasizes that a key factor in this drug's potential is that it targets not only the reservoir of HIV lurking in the blood cells, but also hidden viruses found in the gut, the largest reservoir of HIV. The company is currently planning a Phase 2b clinical trial to validate the drug's long-term effects.

“We will follow 200 patients for 6-9 months to determine the maximum level of reservoir contraction and the time needed to reach it. This will take us into the first half of 2020 when we can start preparing for the third phase,” Erlich says.

Destroy HIV forever

Another approach that is becoming popular in the fight against HIV is also following the latent reservoir of the virus. The "shock and kill" or "hit and kill" approach uses latency-altering agents (LRAs) that activate the HIV latent reservoir, allowing standard antiretroviral therapy to "kill" these viruses.

In 2016, a group of UK universities reported encouraging results from one patient treated using this approach. The news spread around the world, but the researchers warned everyone that these were only preliminary results. The full results of the 50 patients included in the study are expected at a later date.

Similar early results were recently reported by the Israeli company Zion Medical. Gilead, one of the leaders in HIV treatment, has also started clinical trials with a similar approach in partnership with Spanish biotech AELIX Therapeutics.

In Norway, Bionor is testing a similar strategy using a dual vaccine. One stimulates the production of antibodies that block HIV replication, while the other attacks the reservoir. However, so far this approach has not proven its potential in human studies.

In 2017, one of the most advanced trials testing this shock-and-kill method - Phase 1b/2a by Berlin-based Mologen - reported that while the drug could help fight HIV infection, it was not successful in shrinking the HIV reservoir. . And a recent study showed that currently available LRAs activate only less than 5% of the HIV reservoir.

Immunotherapy in the treatment of HIV

What makes HIV so dangerous is that the virus attacks the immune system, leaving people unprotected from infections. But what if we could recharge our immune cells to fight back? Researchers at Oxford and Barcelona reported last year that five out of 15 patients in clinical trials were off antiretroviral therapy for 7 months, thanks to immunotherapy that stimulates the immune system against the virus.

Their approach combines a drug to activate the HIV latent reservoir with a vaccine that can elicit an immune response thousands of times stronger than normal. Although they have shown that immunotherapy can be effective against HIV, the results still need to be confirmed.

Bill Gates supports the development of HIV immunotherapy. One of his investments is in Immunocore. This Oxford company has developed T-cell receptors that can seek out and bind HIV and instruct immune T-cells to kill any HIV-infected cells, even when their HIV levels are very low - as is often the case for virus reservoir cells.

This approach has been shown to work on human tissue samples, and next step there will be confirmation of whether it works in people living with HIV. But one of the most advanced immunotherapies on this moment is a vaccine being developed by the French company InnaVirVax. The vaccine, called VAC-3S, stimulates the production of antibodies against the HIV 3S protein, causing T cells to attack the virus.

“Our approach is completely different from other vaccines that drive the HIV response. We promote immune recovery so that the immune system, like all tools, is better able to recognize and destroy the virus,” says Joel Kruse, CEO of InnaVirVax.

After completion of phase 2a, InnaVirVax is now testing VAC-3S in combination with a DNA vaccine from Finnish FIT Biotech, which is expected to lead to a functional cure for HIV.

Gene therapy

It is estimated that about 1% of people in the world are immune to HIV. The reason is a genetic mutation in the gene that codes for CCR5, a protein on the surface of immune cells that the virus uses to enter and infect. People with this mutation are missing part of the CCR5 protein, making it impossible for HIV to bind to it. Using gene therapy, it would theoretically be possible to edit our DNA and introduce this mutation to stop the virus, providing a complete cure for HIV.

American Sangamo Therapeutics is one of the most advanced developers of this approach. The company extracts the patient's immune cells and uses DNA editing nucleases to make them resistant to HIV. In 2016, Sangamo reported that four out of nine patients who received this gene therapy at one stage of the phase 2 study were able to come off antiretroviral therapy with undetectable levels of HIV, and the full results of the study are expected this year.

In the future, gene therapy for HIV could be done with CRISPR, a gene-editing tool that will be much easier and faster to do than previous gene-editing tools. Not too long in the future, HIV may be one of the first diseases to be cured with CRISPR.

When will there be a cure for HIV?

While there are several approaches that could eventually lead to a functional cure for HIV, there are still some challenges. One of the most serious problems associated with any treatment for this viral infection, is the ability of the virus to rapidly mutate and develop drug resistance, and for many of these new approaches there is still no evidence of whether the virus can become resistant to them.

So far, none of these methods of functional cure of HIV has achieved late stage clinical testing. Unfortunately, this means that we are unlikely to reach our 2020 HIV cure goal.

However, 2019 is likely to be a milestone as the first trial of new late-stage treatments due to start this year. If successful, this could lead to the approval of the first functional cure for HIV in a decade.