New antibody therapy for HIV proved to be successful its first human clinical study.
The new treatment employs broadly neutralizing antibodies, and was shown to have the ability to significantly reduce the amount of the HIV virus present in the bloodstream, Rockefeller University reported.
In an HIV infection, there is an "arms race" between the body's immune system and its invaders. As the body produces new antibodies to fight the virus, the HIV continues to mutate in order to escape. This new therapy uses a potent antibody, called 3BNC117, to "catch HIV off guard."
"What's special about these antibodies is that they have activity against over 80 percent of HIV strains and they are extremely potent," says Marina Caskey, assistant professor of clinical investigation in the Nussenzweig lab and co-first author of the study.
Broadly neutralizing antibodies occur naturally in between 10 and 30 percent of people with HIV, but this only occurs after several years of infection, allowing the virus to spread throughout the body. Isolting and cloning these antibodies allowed the researchers to fight off the virus before they would have developed naturally in the body.
In the recent study, both uninfected and HIV-infected individuals were given a single intravenous does of the antibody. At the highest dosage levels, all eight of the treated individuals showed a 300-fold decrease in the levels of virus measured in the bloodstream about one week after treatment. In half of these patients, the viral loads remained below starting levels for at least eight weeks and the virus did not show resistance to the antibodies.
The researchers believed these antibodies have the ability to increase overall immunity to the infection, and even kill viruses hidden in infected cells. Despite the cleat benefits, the team noted the treatment will most likely need to be used in combination with other antibodies or antiretroviral drugs. The study also provides hope for a potential HIV vaccine that would cause the patient's immune system to produce these antibodies on its own.
The findings were published in a recent edition of the journal Nature.
