Can Early Treatment Save HIV-Specific Memory T4 Cells?
Dr. Walker is studying a small group of people that have been treated with combination HIV drugs (called highly active antiretroviral therapy, or HAART) within days of becoming infected. This period is called primary infection. The very early results suggest that the drugs have protected their HIV-specific T4 cells from infection by HIV, and allowed HIV-specific memory T4 cells to develop. The hope is that the development of HIV-specific memory T4 cells will enable the immune system to control the virus on a long-term basis, as it does in long-term nonprogressors. Other studies of HIV drugs taken right after infection have also been going on. David Ho, a New York doctor and researcher, was one of the first people to organize this type of study back in 1995. The original idea was to try to get rid of all the HIV in the body by keeping people on the anti-HIV drugs until all the HIV-infected cells in the body died off. This idea was called eradication. David Ho thought that the process mi
