|
 Antiretroviral treatments now allow many HIV patients to lead normal
lives, but the drugs do not completely remove the virus from the
body. Remaining reservoirs of virus mean patients are never truly
cured of the infection.
Keytruda, also known as pembrolizumab, is a monoclonal antibody
designed to help the body’s own immune system fend off cancer by
blocking a protein known as Programmed Death receptor (PD-1) used by
tumors to evade disease-fighting cells.
Such drugs work by releasing molecular brakes, or checkpoints, that
tumors use to avoid the body’s immune system, allowing immune cells
to recognize and attack cancer cells the same way they fight
infections caused by bacteria or viruses.
An international research collaboration said it has found evidence
that pembrolizumab can reverse HIV latency - the ability for the
virus to "hide" inside cells of people living with HIV on
antiretroviral therapy.
The study, published on Wednesday in Science Translational Medicine,
enrolled 32 people with both cancer and HIV through the Fred
Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. The participants were
also being treated with effective antiviral medicines for HIV.
[to top of second column] |
 "Pembrolizumab was able to perturb the HIV
reservoir," Professor Sharon Lewin, director of
the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and
Immunity in Melbourne, Australia, said in a
statement.
Her group looked at blood samples collected from
study participants before and after treatment
with pembrolizumab.
Professor Lewin said work would continue on the
samples to understand how pembrolizumab modifies
the immune response to HIV. She said researchers
hope it will "rev up the immune system to kill
the HIV infected cells in the way it does with
cancer.”
(Reporting By Deena Beasley; Editing by Cynthia
Osterman)
[© 2022 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |
