BELGIUM – Recently, a study published in the journal EBioMedicine, by researchers from the University of Leuven, proposed a new method of treatment. The therapy can temporarily stop HIV patients from taking the drug.

Current anti-viral inhibitors can inhibit the replication of HIV, but the virus cannot be completely cleared from the body. Therefore there must be a long-term use in patients with HIV viral inhibitors for treatment.

HIV virus can LEDGF cell proteins as a “grapple”, the virus adsorption sites on cells from patients with specific genetic material, then the virus will begin to multiply and make the patient more and more weak.

As early as 2010, researchers developed an inhibitor called LEDGINs, which inhibitors can block this “grappling hook” effect of HIV, so that the virus cannot be adsorbed into the host cell’s DNA.

Researchers have now found now that use of LEDGINs inhibitor therapy cannot only inhibit the action of HIV integration, but also ensure that the virus does not continue copying after patient therapy is stopped.

Professor Debyser said that this clinical study of LEDGINs inhibitor therapy offers some help. However, they do not know whether this approach can be completely cured of HIV infection. But the current study data shows that after stopping the medication the inhibitory potency of the virus is still maintained.

The researchers emphasized that they we do not want to give any false hope to patients, results of this study are based on a derived cell culture, which will then transition to mice then and human clinical trials.