Vanquishing HIV

摘要

In the 30 years since HIV was identified as the cause of AIDS, antiretroviral treatment has changed the infection from a death sentence to a chronic, manageable disease. Now, treatment is lifelong but often consists of just a tablet a day; resistance to the drugs is rare; and side effects are infrequent. However, the virus integrates into the patient's DNA and becomes silenced, in what is known as latency, and no tools have yet been found to eliminate it. When the antiretrovirals are stopped, infectious virus re-emerges. But since at least 2009, a cure for HIV has been widely accepted as possible, thanks to a handful of reported cases. Members of this select group are functionally cured, often in unusual circumstances: the virus is detectable at low levels, but is under control without antiretrovirals. Now, in Cured, Nathalia Holt - an immunologist who has done groundbreaking research on gene therapy as a cure strategy - traces the fascinating cases of two people who have effectively vanquished HIV.