The cure for HIV?
Scientists produced antibodies that can attack 99% of HIV strains
Leer en Español: Científicos están cerca de encontrar la cura del SIDA
A research lead by members of the US National Institutes of Health and Sanofi pharmaceutical produced “genetically engineered antibodies with the highest activity and breadth of coverage yet seen against human immunodeficiency virus”.
The pharmaceutical company assured that unlike other antibodies, the new antibodies “were engineered to recognize three different target sites, not only one, in one molecule” and it showed a “highly effective suppressing virus growth and infection”.
According to the study, these “trispecific antibodies” can neutralize 99% of more than 200 diverse HIV strains. The trispecific nature of this breakthrough is the key of its effectiveness, because, in the past, 200 HIV strains were resistant against single-target antibodies.
According to Gary Nabel, Chief Scientific Officer and Senior Vice President of Sanofi, “the trispecific antibodies represent a potential new class of therapeutics that can block multiple targets with a single agent”. Nabel also assured that the company will continue to investigate on various multi-targeting medicines.
The pharmaceutical company announced that now they are “manufacturing this trispecific antibodies for use in Phase I clinical trial expected to begin in 2018 at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases”. This means it will take some time and tests before to the treatment can be used on people HIV positive or with AIDS.
Latin American Post | Santiago Gómez Hernández
Copy edited by Susana Cicchetto
