Scientists at KU Leuven have developed a method that permanently disables HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Their method has not yet been tested on humans, but if effective, it would mean people with HIV could be completely cured.
Medication is available that can suppress HIV to such an extent that an infected person can no longer transmit it. However, patients are not actually cured and must take the treatment for life. Researchers at KU Leuven may now have found a solution. “We have developed a method to put the HIV virus into a deep sleep,” says professor of molecular medicine Zeger Debyser. “This renders the virus completely harmless, allowing patients to stop treatment after a certain period of time without having to worry about becoming ill again or infecting others.”
HIV in figures
According to the most recent data from 2023, an estimated 18,700 people were living with HIV in Belgium. Globally, the figure was 39.9 million.
665 Belgians were diagnosed with HIV in 2023, 13% more than the previous year.
According to UNAIDS, 630 000 people worldwide died from AIDS-related illnesses in 2023.
We certainly don’t want to give people false hope
Researchers use a combination of two medicines for this purpose. “The first medicine was developed in 2010 and ensures that the virus’s ‘GPS system’ is disabled, preventing it from reaching the right place and putting it into a dormant state,” says Debyser.
This drug is already being tested on humans, but it is not always 100% effective. “Sometimes viruses accidentally end up in the right place and can still spread throughout the body,” says researcher Eline Pellaers.
The research team have now added a second virus inhibitor to prevent this.
We hope that in the future we will also be able to test our combination treatment on patients in clinical trials, but further research is needed first
Debyser compares the process to a car looking for a parking space. “The first agent disables the car’s GPS so it can no longer find its way to the best parking space. The second agent then closes the barriers to all other car parks so that the car cannot park anywhere else.” While the development is promising and a scientific breakthrough, according to the researchers, there is still a long way to go before it can be tested in humans.
“We certainly don’t want to give people false hope,” says Professor Debyser. “Our method works very well on human cells in the laboratory, but that is only the first step. We hope that in the future we will also be able to test our combination treatment on patients in clinical trials, but further research is needed first. I cannot and will not predict how long that will take.”
The research was published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.