UCLA RESEARCH BRIEF
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
The improved therapy engineers the body’s immune response against HIV rather than waiting for the virus or parts of the virus to induce a response. (Image: A T cell infected with HIV.) Enrique Rivero |
FINDINGS
A UCLA research team has shown that using a truncated form of the CD4 molecule as part of a gene therapy to combat HIV yielded superior and longer-lasting results in mouse models than previous similar therapies using the CD4 molecule.
This new approach to CAR T gene therapy a type of immunotherapy that involves genetically engineering the body’s own blood-forming stem cells to create HIV-fighting T cells has the potential to not only destroy HIV-infected cells but to create “memory cells” that could provide lifelong protection from infection with the virus that causes AIDS.