Scientists Find Key to Long-Term HIV/AIDS Survival

Researchers have found a protein that is key to long-term survival for some people with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Scientists say the discovery offers new hope for development of an AIDS vaccine.

About one in every 300 people infected with the HIV virus have remained healthy for years, even decades, without ever developing full-scale AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) or receiving any antivirus medication. The new study published in the journal Science says an international team of researchers found those long-term survivors’ ability to naturally suppress HIV comes from a protein – HLA-B – found in their DNA.

The protein detects the presence of HIV-infected cells and triggers the body’s immune system to attack and destroy them. The researchers found the link by comparing the DNA of long-term survivors to that of patients with active cases of HIV/AIDS.

Researcher Bruce Walker, a co-author of the study, said the team does not yet fully understand how the protein works, and still has “a long way to go” before developing an effective treatment for HIV infection. He added that knowing how an effective immune response to HIV is generated is “is an important step toward replicating that response with a vaccine.”

The United Nations says more than 33 million people are living with HIV/AIDS worldwide.

Walker is a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Other scientists at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had senior roles in the study, which replied on the work of 300 investigators at over 200 institutions around the world. The AIDS Clinical Trials Group, which collaborated with the American-led study, identified 1,000 long-term survivors – so-called “HIV controllers” – and 2,600 others with progressive HIV infection.