Since the discovery of the HIV virus, it has been one of the toughest diseases to cure. Lots of research has been going on over the years and although infected people can now live a normal life with the virus through suppression drugs, a means of eradicating the virus from the body still remains a work in progress.
Researchers from Kumamoto University in Japan may have found a way to eliminate the dreaded virus once and for all using the newly-created synthesized compound L-HIPPO (Heptanoylphosphatidyl L-Inositol Pentakisphosphate). By using this compound, they are able to trap the virus in its host cell and then allow the cell to die through apoptosis, thereby killing the virus with it. One of the reasons the virus is so hard to cure is these immune cells can enter a resting state, and most medications don’t target resting reservoir cells. The “kick and kill” approach targets reservoir cells, activates the HIV virus inside them, and lets the immune system find these cell using the activated virus as a landmark.
This new approach has its benefits as in the "kick and kill" approach there is still the problem of not being able to efficiently deactivate the virus after successful activation and and satisfiable "kill" device has not been available yet. Apoptosis however is a process where infected cell are destroyed by the body itself.
"Unfortunately, this approach is not immediately available for people infected with HIV," said Associate Professor Mikako Fujita of Kumamoto University, one of the leaders of the study. "First, we have to improve upon the drugs that activate the virus and combine them with L-HIPPO to efficiently target the viral reservoir. This would be a big step towards a complete recovery from HIV. We believe that our research will help to completely eradicate AIDS."
Although we will not be able to buy this drug over the counter any time soon, it is good to know that progress is being made to eradicate to scourge of this disease from humanity.
The full report published by researchers can be found here