January 27, 2011 | Health Matters

Breakthrough in fight against AIDS

Researchers at City of Hope in Duarte, CA, have had some very successful results while testing a new HIV treatment during animal trials. The treatment not only hunts down HIV-infected cells but also stops the virus from spreading. The team of researchers, headed by John Rossi, are calling it a 'smart bomb.'

"This particular approach is pretty different than almost everything else out there recently," said Rossi.

"What they've developed is a two-part warhead, and either part works very well," said Paula Cannon, an associate professor at USC's Keck School of Medicine. "What I like about it is the fact that this isn't just something that happened overnight. Rossi and his team have been working on strategies to stop HIV replicating using these very cutting-edge technologies based on RNA."

"The first niche it could fill is patients whose virus has become resistant to the drug," Rossi said. "We can evolve these [treatments] to target a variety of (strains) of HIV."

However, the tests have not fully eliminated the disease from an infected animal. The virus can actually become dormant and hide from the 'smart bomb,' reestablishing itself at a later date.

"It's highly unlikely to be 100-percent successful," Cannon said. "(Those dormant cells), they're not going to be touched by this therapy, or any sort of therapy we have now. Then the virus wakes up and kicks off the whole infection again."

Still, it is one huge and impressive step forward!

City of Hope team develops "smart bomb" to neutralize HIV [Pasadena Star News]