The key seems to be re-exposing them in a controlled way to their own virus, conditioning the immune system to keep HIV in check. It's being tested in his lab and by roughly 10 other groups. For several years, AIDS researchers have been trying to simplify the complicated, expensive and toxic anti-HIV regiments that are the current mainstay of treatment.
Intermittent therapy is the logical next step.
Investigators led by Dr. Kendall Smith, chief of immunology at Cornell University Medical Center, took nine patients with chronic HIV infection off their antiviral cocktails. The ultralow doses of IL-2 have few side effects, Smith said in an interview. Dr. Eric Rosenberg of Massachusetts General Hospital described two patients who intermittently stopped their antiviral drugs and rallied an immune response to HIV all on their own. While HIV levels did rise each time they stopped the drugs, these levels were successively lower and slower to rebound. Eighteen more volunteers are now entering studies.