Scientists from Aarhus are using an anti-cancer drug to detect HIV by making it visible to the immune system. New research has shown that this method can be used to destroy cells affected by the virus.
Although modern doctors have learned to keep HIV under control, there is still no drug that would completely expel HIV from the body.
The fact is that HIV is designed in such a cunning way that it can hide in the body's own cells, thereby becoming "invisible" to the immune system.
Researchers at Aarhus University Hospital, however, have made significant progress in trying to remove his invisibility cloak from HIV and pulling it out into the light. In their new study, the researchers used an anti-cancer drug to make HIV visible, and thus ensure that the body's own immune defenses destroyed nearly 40% of HIV-infected cells.
“We hoped to get rid of some of the HIV-infected cells. But we didn't expect that we would be lucky enough to destroy as many of them as it turned out to be,”says Steffen Leth, a doctoral student in the infectious diseases department at Aarhus University Hospital.
He is one of the scientists who conducted the study, which was published in the distinguished scientific journal The Lancet.
The achievement attracted international attention
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The Aarhus Group's pursuit of a cure for HIV has already resonated in the international media, especially in the scientific communities dealing with the virus. When the Aarhus people presented preliminary results of their research at the AIDS conference in Australia back in 2014, there was “a loud sigh” through the hall, as the foreign press wrote.
At that time, the Orhussians were able to test the anti-cancer drug romidepsin on only six patients with HIV, but the experiment showed that the drug can be used to identify infected cells.
“In the first study, we learned that we can activate HIV, which was previously dormant and hiding in the cells of the body, to the point where we can measure virus particles in the blood using conventional measurement methods. So it wasn't new to us,”says Steffen Leth.
Now scientists can and destroy HIV cells
In a new study, scientists tested romidespin on a larger number of patients infected with HIV - a total of 20 people participated in the experiment. The new results also confirmed that romidespin is able to activate latent HIV and "bring it into the light" so that viruses can be measured in a patient's bloodstream.
But the new results are not limited to this. Because this time, the scientists went further and were able to push the body's own immune system so that it destroyed a decent portion of the cells infected with HIV.
“We are still very far from creating a proper drug that could completely rid the body of HIV. But this is our main goal, we will continue to work further and try to improve our method,”says Senior Researcher Ole Schmeltz Søgaard, who is the main driving force behind the Aarhus HIV Project.
Copenhagen University professor Jens Lundgren also emphasizes that there is still "a long, long, long way to go before a real cure for HIV." But at the moment, Aarhus scientists have already entered it, says Jens Lundgren.
“In their work to find a cure for HIV, the Aarhus scientists have gone really far. They managed to create a research platform in Skabie (a suburb of Aarhus), which will allow further research of this type and experiments with which difficulties have arisen in other countries. That is why Aarhus is now at the forefront in this field, it is recognized all over the world,”says Jens Lundgren, who is himself an outstanding scientist in the field of HIV research, but is not involved in this project.
How does an anticancer drug work?
Experiments by Aarhus scientists have shown that the anti-cancer drug romidepsin can activate HIV, which is usually hidden in the genome of the body's cells. When the focus is activated, the virus is released into the bloodstream and, according to scientists, leaves a trail outside the infected cells.
This means that it is suddenly possible to distinguish between healthy and HIV-infected cells, and therefore, immune killer cells could theoretically track and destroy infected cells.
But in the course of the first study of the action of romidepsin, scientists were unable to recognize a single sign that the body's immune defenses were actually able to destroy the infected cells. Although the cells infected with HIV became visible, their number did not decrease.
“We hypothesized that immunity was simply not enough to destroy cells with HIV. Then we started thinking about how we could give him a helping hand,”says Ole Smelc Sjugor from Aarhus University Hospital.
The vaccine boosts immunity
In the new study, scientists gave patients a vaccine that, in a nutshell, was intended to prepare the body's immune system for the task of destroying infected cells.
The vaccine was developed in advance by a small Norwegian pharmaceutical company, which agreed to allow Aarhus scientists to test their drug.
“We gave HIV patients the vaccine in six doses, boosting the immune system to find and destroy HIV cells. Thus, our experiment is a combination of two means: on the one hand, we stimulate the immune system, and on the other, we use romidepsin to make it possible to detect cells infected with HIV,”says Steffen Leth. He adds: “This is the first combination study to look at the total number of HIV-infected cells in the body. We saw that the number of infected cells in the body decreased by almost 40%.”
Criticism for the lack of a control group
Professor Jens Lundgren believes that the new scientific work is very interesting and well done, but he not only applauds for the success.
“If you show a little skepticism, then you can ask why there was no control group in the experiment (a group of people who did not take the drug, ed.). Thanks to the control group, it would be possible to see exactly which changes are due to treatment and which are due to chance. This is a common technique used in these types of research,”says Jens Lundgren. He adds: “More importantly, they achieved a 40% reduction in the number of infected cells. But how many percent do you really need to destroy to cure HIV? We know that even a very small amount of HIV can grow and spread again throughout the body.
So, if we want to find a cure, we must find a way to find and destroy all cells with HIV, in every corner of the body. And this, it seems to me, is really difficult. But this is not the same as impossible. They have taken a big step in the right direction anyway."
When will we have a cure for HIV?
Scientists in Aarhus themselves emphasize that they are only at the beginning of the path, and this path is not fast and there is no certainty that their research will be a breakthrough.
Well, if everything goes the way scientists want and hope, when can we expect a cure for HIV?
“This is a very good question that I am often asked, but I simply cannot give a concrete answer to it. The forecast is associated with many unknowns. But if we talk about any expectations, then very few people expect that this will happen in the next five years,”says Ole Smelc Sjugor.
Aarhus scientists are currently working on a new experiment in which they are focused on finding the best way to kill HIV-infected cells. They have just received an international grant of DKK 19.2 million from the international division of the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences, which they have allocated to continue their search for an HIV cure.
Lise Brix