Pirate's Cove

The oldest mystery about the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) – shown here infecting a T cell – has come one step closer to being solved. Patients with HIV can today lead almost normal lives thanks to very effective anti-viral drugs that stop the virus from multiplying. But as soon as they stop taking the drugs, the virus flares up again, even after years. This is baffling because the cell types that HIV most obviously infects have short lives. Yet HIV lurks for decades. Thus researchers wondered whether memory T stem cells – an important group of immune cells that live for many years and control other immune cells – could be HIV’s main hideout. Their hunch was confirmed and now new strategies for fighting HIV that borrow from decades-long research into cancer drugs targeting the long-lived tumour stem cells are being investigated.

Written by Tristan Farrow

Tristan Farrow

Writer

British Science Association Media Fellow. He holds a degree in quantum physics from the University of Cambridge and a Research Fellowship in quantum effects in biology.

• Image by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
• National Institutes of Health, USA
• Originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Research published in Nature Medicine, January 2014