PART 1: The Latest HIV Research - Destroying a Virus That Hides

After more than four decades of #investigation, scientists may be on the precipice of finding a cure for #HIV, a #virus that currently can be reduced to undetectable levels in the #body but not completely eradicated.
Mario Stevenson, Ph.D., director of the HIV and Emerging #Infectious #Diseases Institute at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, joins the latest episode of #InsideUMiamiMedicine to discuss this vexing challenge. Dr. Stevenson is an internationally recognized #molecular #virologist who has worked on the viral etiology of HIV for more than 25 years.
“We have antivirals which keep the virus undetectable for decades, but that is not an end game. In almost every case of patients who stop taking antiretroviral medication, the virus comes back in a couple weeks,” said Dr. Stevenson, who is also the co-director of the #Miami Center for #AIDS #Research and the Raymond F. Schinazi and Family Endowed Chair in #Biomedicine.
Although HIV can be suppressed using antiretroviral #therapy (ART), it cannot yet be cured. This is because the virus integrates itself into host cells and may become dormant but remains ready to emerge from the cell reservoirs when ART stops. Thus, individuals with HIV require lifelong adherence to #medication.
“The key obstacle to a cure is latent HIV reservoirs,” said Dr. Stevenson. “This virus has ways to circumvent everything we throw at it.”
Tune in to the episode to understand why the body doesn’t recognize the latent HIV cells in reservoirs and how the latest research and therapies are targeting the masked virus.