Research shows HIV virus may hide in bone marrow

6 May 2010: African leaders start drive to eradicate malaria
5 May 2010: FDA report criticizes conditions in factory that produced recalled medications
25 April 2010: WHO starts simultaneous immunization campaigns in over 100 countries
16 April 2010: United Nations: More people with access to cell phones than toilets in India
13 April 2010: Study: Women susceptible to high dietary glycemic load

Health
Health care
Medicine
Medicine portal

Recent research published in Nature Medicine two days ago shows the HIV virus may be found within the bone marrow of those affected. Kathleen Collins, the co-author of the study and professor at the University of Michigan, states the purpose of the study is to achieve "a better understanding of how HIV hides in the body."

Recently, new antiretroviral drugs have helped slow the progression of the HIV virus as long as the patient uses these drugs for their whole life. This shows the treatment is effective, however some portion of the virus remains within the human body.

The researchers found the virus can hide in certain bone marrow cells. Collins stated that one cannot kill the bone marrows cells because this would have a lethal effect on humans, however she said "maybe we could find ways of targeting only the latently infected bone marrow cells." Collins believes that in the future this new discovery may help scientists to kill off the HIV virus, or perhaps remove the necessity of using antiretrovirals for a lifetime.

Have an opinion on this story? Post it!

Sources

Scmid, Randolph "Researchers: AIDS virus can hide in bone marrow" – Associated Press, 7 March 2010
Dotinga, Randy "HIV Hides Out in Bone Marrow Cells" – Business Week, 7 March 2010

External link

"HIV-1 infects multipotent progenitor cells causing cell death and establishing latent cellular reservoirs" in Nature Medicine

Share this: 

Got a correction? Add the template {{protected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.