Double Dosage—Harvard Medical School’s Newest HIV Inhibitor May Also Block Herpes Viruses

A new study by professors at Harvard Medical School may prove that both HIV and herpes can be treated one day with the same medications, but not cured. Both being retroviruses that infect cells in a similar manner, herpes and HIV can cause a lifetime of symptoms and even be extremely lethal, but researchers say that new inhibitor medication may block the spread of the viruses.

In terms of sexually transmitted infections, none may be quite as common, nor quite as pestilent, as the herpes virus. Coming in a variety of forms that can cause anything from the common cold sore all the way to the ever-virulent strand of genital herpes, this virus has proven to be a great adversary to physicians and the pharmaceutical industry alike.

And even though herpes may not be quite as lethal as an HIV infection, which kills millions each year as the complications of the end stage of the virus infection (AIDS) compromises the host's immune system, it does complicate other forms of infection. By creating open lesions where mucosal membranes are exposed to the elements, and other's DNA, herpes has been known to increase the infection rate of HIV, causing a particularly lethal coinfection.

But the similarities in the viruses may give us an answer to not only a treatment, but someday a cure.

A team of researchers led by David Knipe, professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at Harvard Medical School, recently published the results of a two year study in the mBio Journal. The study, which gives a bit more insight into the way that the herpes virus infects and replicates in its hosts, discusses a new class of anti-herpes drugs that could potentially fend off both strands of herpes and HIV.

Retroviruses that embed their viral DNA into human chromosomes, HIV and herpes are pathogens that are not easily combated. By using our own cells as their hiding grounds and personal virus factories, the primary mode of treatment really is prevention. And in knowing the similar infection pathways, Knipe and his associates were able to determine that HIV integrase inhibitors, a powerful pharmaceutical that effectively blocks HIV and also herpes from binding from our DNA-keeping potentially lethal viral DNA out of our chromosomes.

"The herpes viruses cause considerable morbidity and mortality [and] second-line anti-herpes drugs have limitations" Knipe says. " This study showed that the HIV integrase inhibitors also block herpes viral infection, raising the important potential of a new class of anti-herpes drugs and the prospect of drugs that combat both HIV and the herpes viruses."