Path to new treatment?: A microscope image of a CD8+ T cell loaded with perforin and granzymes. Highlighted with flourescent markers, perforin is in green, granzyme B in white and a stain for HIV-specific killer T-cells is in red.
Credit: Mark Connors
Therapeutic vaccine
This means that we might one day be able to create a 'therapeutic' vaccine which can actually fight the infection, rather than only conferring protection in advance of contracting HIV.
Guido Silvestri, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, said that he has big hopes for the research.
"It is likely that studies like this one will eventually pave the way for immune-based interventions that may harness the human immune system in ways that will result in complete control, or even eradication, of HIV," he said. "Of course we have a long way to go, 10 to 20 years at least, but this is a step in the right direction."
Connors said the next question for his team is why CD8+ T cells in most people lack this ability to kill HIV-infected cells.
