HIV particles budding off the surface of an infected T cell. WIKIMEDIA, NIAID
For the millions of people living with HIV worldwide, a life-long commitment to antiretroviral drugs is a must. Without these drugs, reservoirs of HIV hiding within resting T cells throughout the body can easily resurge and cause disease. In a study published yesterday (October 20) in Nature Communications, researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in Bethesda, Maryland, described a bispecific antibody-like protein that attacks those reservoirs by coaxing HIV out of hiding and targeting infected cells for destruction.
“In order to kill the [infected] cell, the cell has to be activated,” said study coauthor John Mascola, director of NIAID’s Vaccine Research Center. This is because HIV has a way of hiding out inside inactive CD4+ T cells where the virus ...
