First Steps Toward a Cure for HIV?

CROI 2012 included several compelling presentations focused on the search for a cure. Perhaps the most important was a study of vorinostat, a histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor approved by the FDA for treatment of lymphoma. Previous work showing that histone deacetylation helps maintain HIV latency led to the hypothesis that an HDAC inhibitor might reverse latency. Now, in a first test of this concept, six HIV-infected patients who had virologic suppression on antiretroviral therapy (ART) were treated with a single dose of vorinostat — and all had significant increases in HIV expression in latently infected cells [Archin N et al. Abstract 157LB]. Results from a 14-day trial of vorinostat [Lewin S. Abstract 106] are eagerly awaited.

Althoug…