New hope for HIV cure in 'elite controllers'

A handful of people with HIV are able to control the disease without treatment, and now research on these so-called “elite controllers” is offering clues in the search for a cure.

For most people with HIV, controlling the virus requires a daily, lifelong regime of anti-retroviral therapy due to the nature of HIV and how it replicates. But in the tiny number of “elite controllers,” HIV don’t seem to behave the same way.

After sequenced billions of cells taken from 64 elite controllers living with the virus without ART, and 41 people on ART, scientists find the location of viral genomes is the vital point.

In elite controllers, HIV was often found in locations of the human genome that researchers call “gene deserts.”

“In these inactive parts of the human genome, human DNA is never turned on, and thus HIV ... remains in a ‘blocked and locked’ state,” said Xu Yu, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, who led the research.