A research team led by scientists of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) announced on Thursday the invention of a universal antibody drug against HIV and AIDS that can “kill two birds with one stone.”
The new findings were published in the April issue of ‘Journal of Clinical Investigation.’
By engineering a tandem Bi-specific Broadly Neutralising Antibody (bNAb), the team found that this novel antibody drug is universally effective not only against all genetically divergent global HIV-I strains tested, but also promoting the elimination of latently infected cells in a humanised model.
There are two main types of HIV – HIV-1, the most common and HIV-2, which is relatively uncommon and less infectious. Worldwide, the predominant, earliest and most commonly referred to virus is HIV-1 and it accounts for around 95 per cent of all infections worldwide. The new findings show that the single gene-encoded tandem bNAb titled “BiIA-SG” strategically ambushes invading HIVI particles to protect CD4 positive T cells by attaching to host protein CD4. The CD4 count is like a snapshot of how well one’s immune system is functioning.
BiIA-SG not only displays a potent activity against all three panels of 124 genetically divergent global HIV-I strains tested, but also prevents diverse live viral challenges completely in humanised mice. Moreover, gene transfer of BiIA-SG achieves prolonged drug availability in vivo, leading to a promising efficacy of eliminating HIV-I infected cells in humanised mice. HIV continues to be a major global public health issue, having claimed more than 35 million lives so far. In 2016, 1.0 million people died from HIV-related causes globally.
There were approximately 36.7 million people living with HIV at the end of 2016 with 1.8 million people becoming newly infected in 2016 globally. On its part, Nigeria ranks as the second country with largest HIV epidemic, coming after South Africa. .
It is estimated that about 3.2 Nigerians adults are living with HIV. However, Similarly, Nigeria tops the list of paediatric HIV globally. According to the research team, with significantly improved breadth and potency, BiIA-SG will hopefully be the first “made in Hong Kong” anti- HIV-I antibody drug for clinical development. The research team was led by scientists at AIDS Institute and Department of Microbiology of HKU’s Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine.
.new telegraph