Carolina Alumni Review - May/June 2012

Drug Helps Purge Hidden HIV, Study Shows

In a clinical trial, six HIV-infected men who were medically stable on anti-AIDS

drugs received vorinostat, an oncology drug. Recent studies by Margolis and others have shown that vorinostat also attacks the enzymes that keep HIV hiding in certain CD4+ T cells, specialized immune system cells that the virus uses to replicate. Within hours of receiving the vorinostat, all six patients had a significant increase in HIV RNA in these cells, evidence that the virus was being forced out of its hiding place.

Ateam of researchers at UNC has uccessfully flushed latent HIV infection from hiding, with a drug used to treat certain types of lymphoma.

Tackling latent HIV in the immune system is critical to finding a cure for AIDS. While current antiretroviral therapies can very effectively control virus levels, they can never fully eliminate the virus from the cells and tissues it has infected.

“Lifelong use of antiretroviral therapy is
problematic for many reasons, not least
among them are drug resistance, side
effects and cost,” said Dr. David Margolis,
professor of medicine, microbiology and
immunology, and epidemiology. “We
need to employ better long-term strategies,
including a cure.”
COURTESY OF DAVID MARGOLIS

Margolis

Margolis’ new study is the first to demonstrate that the biological mechanism that keeps the HIV virus hidden and unreachable by current antiviral therapies can be targeted and interrupted in humans, providing new hope for eradicating HIV.

Vorinostat may not be the magic bullet,
but this success shows us a new way to test
drugs to target latency and suggests that we
can build a path that may lead to a cure.”
The research is
part of a UNC-led
consortium, the
Collaboratory of
AIDS Researchers
for Eradication,
funded by the
National Institute
of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases.
The consortium is
administered by the
N.C. Translational
and Clinical Sci-
ences Institute at
UNC, one of 60 medical research institu-
tions in the U.S. working to improve bio-
medical research through the NIH Clinical
and Translational Science Awards program.

Funding for this research was provided by the National Institutes of Health, Merck & Co. and the James B. Pendleton Charitable Trust.

“This proves for the first time that there are ways to specifically treat viral latency, the first step towards curing HIV infection,” said Margolis, who led the study. “It shows that this class of drugs, HDAC inhibitors, can attack persistent virus.

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