FBS Colloquia No.183Laboratory of Buildig Block Science

Cutting-edge of anti-AIDS research

Nearly 35 years have passed since the discovery of HIV-1 as the causative agent of AIDS. During this period, AIDS has dramatically changed into "a controllable chronic disease" from "the fatal illness". This remarkable improvement in the prognosis of HIV-1 infection is mostly owing to the progress of antiretroviral therapy (ART). A variety of drugs, such as nucleoside/nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors, nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, protease inhibitors, integrase inhibitors, and entry inhibitors, are currently available for treatment of AIDS patients. Fixed-dose combination drugs containing a novel integrase inhibitor have been licensed, and these drugs enable "single tablet regimen (one pill per day)". Furthermore, side effects of recent drugs are considerably reduced compared with those of initial drugs. However, current ART cannot cure HIV-1 infection due to the existence of HIV-1 latently infected cells, which escape from immune surveillance and cannot be eliminated by ART. Therefore, the patients need to take antiretroviral drugs throughout their life. To solve this problem, many research groups including ours are currently undertaking several approaches to the cure of AIDS. Such approaches will also be introduced in this colloquium.