Markowitz and his colleagues instead hope to target HIV-positive patients in the early, acute stage. Because improvement in the CD4+ T cell count occurred shortly after patients took cyclosporine in previous studies, the team is using small doses of cyclosporine and a short, four-week treatment period, Markowitz says. Results of this trial of around 45 patients are expected toward the end of the year.

This novel line of attack against HIV is in its early days, and the scientific community is still cautious. But with antiretroviral resistance on the rise, immunosuppression could prove to be a much needed extra weapon in the anti-HIV arsenal.

This article was originally published with the title T Cell Turnoff.

2 Comments

1. 1. Arthur Gittleman 06:41 PM 2/6/10

   I am afraid that these researchers have a conflict of interest. It is called having a job or being employed. The fact use of Prednisolone is now almost standard among many feline that have FIV. One book "Pets at Risk" uses it for FIV.
   
   But I do not use it and instead use licorice root something that the Japanese use but has the effect of suppressing HIV virus. And HIV trial lastest for 11 years success in its use.
   
   I am afraid that the great fear is that drug companies will lose billions of dollars if their drugs are replaced and like every business tries to stop competition. This shows a problem with what goes on in the field of medicine when it should be concerned with saving lives instead of making money. NO don't this is getting off the subject of immunosuppression. But bias is a fact of life which is why alot of research is nothing more than nonsense in the hope of misleading. And not a search for truth.
   
   On the subject of immunosuppression you do not quote two important studies which show differnet results. One from France and the other from Germany. The other is patent 5,846,961 by Knox Van Dyke "Multi-Facted Method to repress reproduction of latent viruses in humans and animals file June 7, 1995. It mostly has FIV but onlye one HIV trial.
   
   The use of Prednisolone for HIV should be 5mg as what it really is doing is anti-inflammation more than suppression. But it does deal with overactation of HIV. In SIV which does not advance to AIDS the monkey immune system tolerates the virus instead of attacking it. The use of prednisolone is a method of trying to do something similar. The failure of researchers that you have shown is simply they had no idea what they were trying to do and likely were not motivated to successed for reasons I have stated. You really have to be motivated and not be concerned about money, career and all the other things causing failure
   
   I myself have a FIV infected cat named tiger that I treat and has the FIV infection for ten years. He is in good health and likely to live many more years. I was the first to use three HIV drugs to treat FIV but these drugs have problems both in HIV and FIV. Instead I use supplements and herbs which are not very toxic and do not have HIV drug problem. Besides the cost is low. Recently, 18 month HIV trial of Immu-25 from India showed good results. Still what we get from press and government is silence. This also goes for Nobuto Yamamoto work on Gc-MAF. Anything that would effect money making from major drugs companies seems to produce silence even cures.

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2. 2. Arthur Gittleman 06:54 PM 2/6/10

   
   Book "Pet at Risk" shows the use of Prednisolone. Patent 5,846,961 by Knox Van Dyke also shows use of this drug for both FIV and HIV. Andrieu in France successful used if for HIV around 1993 for suppressing immune system.

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