Preliminary research detailed in this weeks Lancet medical journal, outlines how scientists use an anti-convulsant drug to awaken dormant HIV hiding within the body, where it is temporarily invisible, but remains extremely dangerous.
Infection is currently incurable because most drugs only work when the virus multiplies as an active cell. Sometimes, however, HIV attacks dormant cells and when it does, the virus itself becomes dormant.
The virus does not pose a threat in its resting state, but sleeping cells sporadically wake up and reactivate the virus, causing it to multiply. Patients must continuously take medications to fight the virus once it comes out of the reawakened cells.
Over the past few years, several drugs have been shown to decrease the size of the dormant HIV pool. These were abandoned after the effect proved too weak or side effects too toxic.
Dr. Warner Greene, director of the Gladstone Institute for Virology and Immunology at the University of California, says the latest drug, valproic acid, shows more promise.
The study, led by Dr. David Margolis at the University of North Carolina, tests the ability of the drug to decrease the number of infected dormant cells.
Four patients undergoing standard therapy were given the pills twice daily for three months, after which infected dormant cells decreased by 75 percent in three out of four patients.
Margolis says findings suggest these new approaches will allow for the cure of HIV in the future.
Some are not as optimistic, however. Dr. Robert Siliciano, a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, says he doubts valproic acid will solve the problem, as it's likely HIV lies dormant in other types of cells that scientists have not yet discovered. He says tackling these reservoirs may require a totally different approach.
