Elite Controllers and the Promise They Hold in HIV Research.

As the social marketing intern at Good Samaritan Project, I spend a lot of time reading about developments in medical research. One topic I find fascinating is elite controllers.
What are elite controllers? While the term sounds like a reference to accounting and finance, elite controllers are HIV positive individuals that are long-term non-progressors. According to an article from AIDS Research Institute at University of California, San Francisco, elite controllers “without the help of any drugs, they somehow keep the virus from replicating uncontrollably and prevent the virus’s lethal damage to their immune system.” These individuals have low to undetectable levels of HIV in their blood and maintain high CD4+ counts.

The factors that keep individual’s HIV levels from rising may be the key to better treatment methods. However, Stephen Deeks, a professor in the Department of Medicine at UCSF, notes, “The key issue is that probably no one factor will be sufficient. So, it is likely a complex situation in which elite controllers have one, two, or three things that help them control the virus.” In order to determine these factors, data on the genetic differences between elite controllers and non-controllers must be collected and analyzed. More than 300 samples from elite controllers have been donated to the international HIV controller consortium and whole-genome scans are being conducted.

A major barrier to this type of research is cost. Of collecting the data, Deeks remarked, “It costs about $5,000 per person per year.” In addition, the risk to reward ratio in working with elite controllers is high. Yet working with these individuals holds the promise of a better life for those infected with HIV. Deeks states “Elite controllers are not cured, but they are as close to it as possible. We think of them as being like individuals who have had cancer and are in remission. So, we think of elite controllers as the reasonable goal for the treated population.”

Adapted from the article UCSF Researchers Study Elite Controllers So Much Promise Requires Risky Research by Sandra Spence.

For more interesting developments in HIV research see this article http://www.reuters.com/article/asiaCrisis/idUSN03116297