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Comment by ars | Hacker News Reader

So this is not intended as a cure, and can not function that way.

Rather it's for use as a protective to prevent someone getting infected.

And it might have value as a treatment (but I'm guessing it will be too toxic inside blood).

Hood also sees potential for using nanoparticles with melittin as therapy for existing HIV infections, especially those that are drug-resistant. The nanoparticles could be injected intravenously and, in theory, would be able to clear HIV from the blood stream.

But the reservoir for HIV infection, the thing that makes clearing HIV particles from the blood insufficient to cure it, is the CD4 T-cell. So just clearing the blood of HIV will not be curative.

I don't have much biology experience, but if you can keep the blood stream clear of HIV, wouldn't that prevent new T-cells from getting infected, allowing the count of healthy T-cells to start growing as the body makes new ones?

Yes. That's the basis for HAART, the current mainstay of HIV treatment. It's a good treatment, but not a cure.

I'm not a biologist either; but, a thought: if the body is protected from greater infection while still keeping its infection levels constant, could the body then actually create successful antibodies for the existing HIV in them, and become cured over time?

It's a good thought, but if that were true, then HAART, which keeps viral load low, would lead to a cure.

Maybe it will in 20 years time...? I honestly have no idea. I'm speaking way outside of my knowledge realm and am more thinking aloud and asking questions than anything

Interesting thought, and I think we have the data to answer the question. HAART has been around since ~1995, so we actually have about 20 years of data to say that it does not cure HIV.

How bad would it be if you injected something that killed all CD4 T-cells? Like how long would it take until new ones formed and how vulnerable would you be until that happened?

That's in essence what HIV does. You'd give the patient a quicker onset of AIDS. Perhaps if you eradicate the rest of the HIV and keep the patient stable in some other way this could work... but I think this sort of scorched earth method isn't/wouldn't be as attractive as a targeted cure due to the period you'd have full blown AIDS.

I have no idea what clearing HIV from the blood stream would achieve? I assume it is not a cure, but might help reduce risk of transmission or something?

Edit: Question answered whilst I wrote it! <3

You are correct that lower viral loads reduce the risk of transmission to others. [1]

[1] = http://www.aidsmap.com/Viral-load-and-sexual-transmission-ri...

It might be able to arrest an infection's internal spread to other tissues and cells, but the virus would still live in existing infected cells. They'd have to find the therapeutic levels necessary to "cleanse the blood", and do clinical trials to look for side-effects (since they'll've introduced a solution of foreign bodies into the bloodstream). It might be that the levels to cleanse the blood are too high in most cases to be economically or therapeutically viable; or maybe not.

In any case, the approach is pretty neat.

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