AIDES Smutley. Antibodies Protect Against HIV in Mice - NIH Research Matters. December 12, 2011 Researchers have devised a gene transfer technique in mice that, with a single injection, protects the immune cells that HIV targets.
With further development, the approach may prove effective at helping to prevent HIV infection in people. An illustration of the virus used to deliver broadly neutralizing antibodies against HIV. Video: 90 Days with AIDS - Lifestyle. Protein that helps battle HIV. Courtesy of Mathias Lichterfeld About one in 300 individuals infected with HIV are naturally able to suppress viral replication without antiviral drug treatment.
“The challenge now is to understand why p21 is more strongly expressed in HIV controllers,” says Mathias Lichterfeld of the MGH Infectious Disease Division and Harvard Medical School. Elevated levels of p21, a protein best known as a cancer fighter, may be involved in the ability of a few individuals to control HIV infection with their immune system alone. In a paper in the April issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Infectious Disease Division and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard report that CD4 T cells from HIV controllers, while capable of being infected, can effectively suppress key aspects of the viral life cycle, an ability that may be associated with increased expression of the p21 protein.