New 'shock and kill' technique for HIV

A new technique for fighting HIV has been termed 'shock and kill' and involves 'smoking out' latent HIV genes from human cells.

Researchers writing in BioMed Central's journal Retrovirology have suggested the new discovery could be a 'milestone' in the struggle to cure HIV.

Dr Enrico Garaci, president of the Italian Institute of Health, Dr Savarino from the institute and their team found that a barrier of latency needs to be broken through in order to make infected cells targetable by artificial techniques or the immune system.

"This can be achieved using inhibitors of histone deacetylases (HDACs), which are a class of enzymes that maintain HIV latency. However, their effects on HIV are evident only when used in toxic quantities," the researchers wrote.

Dr Savarino added: "I really hope this study may open new avenues to the development of weapons able to eliminate the HIV-infected cells from the body."

Experiments using animal models are expected to be carried out to explore 'shock and kill' further.

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