Scientists have engineered a "tri-specific antibody" that they say can attack 99% of HIV strains:
Scientists have engineered an antibody that attacks 99% of HIV strains and can prevent infection in primates. It is built to attack three critical parts of the virus - making it harder for HIV to resist its effects.
The work is a collaboration between the US National Institutes of Health and the pharmaceutical company Sanofi. The International Aids Society said it was an "exciting breakthrough". Human trials will start in 2018 to see if it can prevent or treat infection.
Trispecific broadly neutralizing HIV antibodies mediate potent SHIV protection in macaques (DOI: 10.1126/science.aan8630) (DX)
The development of an effective AIDS vaccine has been challenging due to viral genetic diversity and the difficulty in generating broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs). Here, we engineered trispecific antibodies (Abs) that allow a single molecule to interact with three independent HIV-1 envelope determinants: 1) the CD4 binding site, 2) the membrane proximal external region (MPER) and 3) the V1V2 glycan site. Trispecific Abs exhibited higher potency and breadth than any previously described single bnAb, showed pharmacokinetics similar to human bnAbs, and conferred complete immunity against a mixture of SHIVs in non-human primates (NHP) in contrast to single bnAbs. Trispecific Abs thus constitute a platform to engage multiple therapeutic targets through a single protein, and could be applicable for diverse diseases, including infections, cancer and autoimmunity.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Saturday September 23 2017, @09:25PM
Well we know which strains will become dominant then, don't we.
The "challenging due to viral genetic diversity" is not likely to go away. A short term suppression of most strains seems the best they can hope for. The story leaves unsaid how many strains remain in that 1% against which this trifecta isn't effective, and what traits the 1% may share with the 99%.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Saturday September 23 2017, @09:32PM (6 children)
Great news! More unprotected sex with hookers and junkies! On a more serious note tho I do wonder what, if this turns out to work as predicted and it's just not attacking but also eradicating, this will do to the mind of people. Will HIV just become a slightly embarrassing STD like the rest of them -- oops got the darn HIV/AIDS thing again, better pop some pills. Also I guess it will suck for the people that get that 1% super-resistant-form-of HIV that will eventually be created due to this.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Chrontius on Saturday September 23 2017, @10:35PM
On the other hand, those viral strains that have adapted to evade the existing trispecific antibodies could also be targeted by their own monoclonal antibodies, perhaps given as a supplement to the HIV vaccine, conventional HAART, PREP to prevent infection, and that ignores the most important effect: It's now torn between evading the monoclonal antibody, and evading the human immune system. By selecting for those strains that evade the trispecific antibody, there is an opportunity cost - the virus could become less effective at entering cells, or more easily detected by the immune system, or produce fewer viral copies because of the energetic cost of building a less-efficient transmembrane protein kills the host cell more quickly, and many viral particles are released unfinished, therefore ultimately lowering the viral load. And HIV is, initially, held at bay by the immune system before the exponential replication hits an inflection point. Perhaps this strain of HIV isn't ever capable of bringing the viral load to that inflection point, and becomes a long-lasting but ultimately acute condition following a course like mononucleosis - you feel like shit for a couple months, then get better.
Science is complicated.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday September 23 2017, @10:48PM
Knock back HIV into 1% of the infected population, that 1% will spread back to previous epidemic levels in a few years.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday September 24 2017, @01:33AM
I know, right? Looks like we're about to lose something Hollywood tried very hard to associate with people assigned to the male gender at birth who do not exist for the financial gratification of a cisgendered woman. For a while there, HIV/GRID almost made it seem like Yahweh and his alter ego [wikipedia.org] existed and was executing those people for their blasphemy. How will we ever continue to vilify them without seemingly miraculous divine endorsement?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 24 2017, @01:05PM (2 children)
Those are some expensive pills. Monoclonal antibodies tend to run in the mid five-digits range. Think "more than the average yearly salary."
Adopting a cavalier attitude towards diseases like HIV or diabetes or forms of cancer whose incidence can be lowered through lifestyle changes only drives up the cost of healthcare. It may be more cost effective to get people to adopt lifestyle choices that prevent problems (condoms would be high on that list, along with avoiding the "cruising" lifestyle) than to develop further treatments for problems that could have been avoided. When other people are paying the cost of that treatment, especially if that does become the taxpayer's responsibility in a fully nationalized healthcare payment scheme, that's going to become more of an issue: the "slightly embarrassing STD" with the $50,000 cure for which the rest of society is paying - that is going to cause some political friction.
(Score: 2) by rondon on Monday September 25 2017, @02:39PM (1 child)
Does it cost 50,000 to create, or is it priced at 50,000? Because if it doesn't cost that to create, the price should come down over time. Granted, I'm not certain that those therapies don't actually cost that much to produce, so without that caveat I would agree with you that there could be an issue with that mindset.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Cinnamon Beige on Tuesday September 26 2017, @02:52AM
Depending on the complexity, ect. ect. ect., it costs at least $50K to create a batch of made-to-order antibodies--the cost will still come down over time, but that's more due to the basic fact that the tech is currently in its infancy and about as temperamental as somebody with full-fledged bipolar who is off their meds and in a maniac phase with a side order of a psychotic break. How long it'll take for the costs to drop is, like such a coworker, impossible to predict...but both are relatively certain to eventually calm the fuck down or die horribly.
Oh, and that second option? Antibody therapies can be finicky things in vivo, and liable to die horribly in the human testing phase if anybody undergoing it dies of something other than by accident or homicide...and people are stupid enough that the leftover 1% might be sufficient to keep this from getting into general use much like past HIV treatments & vaccines that didn't get all strains. All it takes is one moron finding an ambulance-chaser capable of getting a sufficiently stupid and/or sympathetic jury to award huge damages because the moron is 'convinced' that most means any & all...which is just a matter of time, really, especially since this is most likely to just change the genetic profile of strains going forward.
This is one of many, many things where lifestyle changes are going to be the most effective tool, forever. Natural selection is not going to stop working just because you don't like what it's doing. It does not care, never has cared, and never will care either. I suggest you make your peace with it, instead.
(Score: -1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 23 2017, @11:10PM (3 children)
There are a few unlucky victims, but mostly HIV targets awful people. It hits junkies. It hits people homewreakers, prostitutes, people who accept pick-up culture, and others who don't create solid marriages. Good riddance. Such people don't build a solid society in which the next generation can be safely raised.
I miss how HIV was in the 1980s.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 23 2017, @11:22PM (2 children)
Now that's the realDonaldTrump I know and love.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 24 2017, @03:29AM (1 child)
...and when he's been impeached, convicted, and expelled, we'll have Mike Pence in the on-deck circle, a "Christian" guy with the same attitudes.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 24 2017, @04:50AM
It's quite the pickle, but I'm enjoying the orangutan-in-chief "for the lulz," as I've seen it written. The world of man, just 8 years away from blowing itself sky high. I don't think there is a way to avoid N-day. It was bound to happen as this global information network rolled out. I'm sure the sociologists will go wild back in 2042 over the primary sources I'm collecting, especially the goldmine I've found on this board.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 24 2017, @12:14AM (1 child)
I don't think it does, so it should be far easier for their bodies to fight it off.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 24 2017, @12:46AM
SHIV = Simian-Human Immunodeficiency Virus
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 24 2017, @01:44AM
... and then is subsequently beaten to a pulp by the HIV strains.