Researchers at MIT and Harvard believe they may be nearer to understanding why a rare group of people, known as ‘Elite Controllers’, appear to have the ability to fend off the progression of AIDS.
In the study, published online by the journal Nature, it was observed that the immune system of Elite Controllers often possessed a variant of human leukocyte antigens (HLAs) known as HLA B57. This gene variant appears to cause the body to produce ‘trained’ killer T-cells able to attack several types of HIV protein, increasing the chance of the virus being eliminated. Some elite controllers have maintained a virtually undetectable viral load for many years post infection.
Whilst the Elite Controllers number only about 0.5% of all people with HIV, the findings of this study may be an important step on the road to developing a vaccine. The science behind this would be based on prompting a cross-reactive response in the T-cells among those without the ‘natural immunity’ the HLA B57 gene variant appears to confer.
The optimism of the researchers is tempered by the fact that they estimate a vaccine based on these findings is a minimum of 10 years away.
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