ANDRZEJ KRAUZEJust 10 years after Richard Nixon declared war on cancer in 1971, what appeared to be an anomalous epidemiological puzzle heralded the onset of a new war that continues to be fought against another wily foe, the retrovirus HIV. In the war on cancer, there seems to be a real feeling that some kind of corner has been turned, and last month we focused on some of those hopeful advances, especially in the field of personalized drug regimens and immunotherapy. This month The Scientist covers the latest reconnaissance and tactical maneuvers that are exciting hopes that HIV/AIDS can actually be vanquished.
HIV is a stealthy interloper that inserts its genome into the DNA of the T cells it infects, causing a devastating illness. A cocktail of antiretroviral therapies (ART) has changed AIDS from a death sentence into a chronic, treatable condition for many. But the treatment is not a cure. Stop the drugs, and the virus roars back to fight anew. The largest obstacle to ridding the body of HIV is the virus’s seemingly universal establishment of latent reservoirs capable of ramping up to produce new infectious virions.
Hopeful straws in the wind include new vaccine designs and latent HIV eradication.
Several articles in the May issue address this sneaky behavior. “Hidden Menace” explores what’s known about the problem and the latest advances being made in ...
