CAR-T Cell Therapy Shows Early Promise for Long-Term HIV Control

Researchers tested CAR-T cell therapy in nine people living with HIV who were already taking antiretroviral medication. The treatment involves removing a patient's T cells, engineering them in a lab to target HIV, and returning them through a single infusion.

Three participants received only the modified cells. Their virus levels rebounded within weeks. The remaining six received a conditioning drug along with either a lower or higher dose of CAR-T cells.

Three people who began antiretroviral treatment late in their infection experienced rapid viral rebound. Three others who started treatment soon after diagnosis showed better outcomes. Two of them maintained undetectable HIV levels for 10 and 20 months and stopped taking medication entirely.

The initial findings were presented last week at the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy annual meeting in Boston. Steven Deeks, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, led the trial.

CAR-T cell therapy has been approved for certain cancers and has also been used to treat severe autoimmune diseases. In this study, researchers engineered T cells to recognize two sites on the HIV virus to reduce the chance of escape. Boro Dropulić, executive director of the Maryland nonprofit Caring Cross, developed the therapy.

He said the goal is to create immune cells that remain in the body and respond whenever the virus begins to replicate. The treatment requires a blood filtration procedure followed by several weeks of laboratory manufacturing. Approved CAR-T therapies in the United States currently cost between $300,000 and $475,000.