Physicians at the School of Medicine will begin clinical research on an anti-HIV therapy that uses a novel approach to fight the AIDS virus. Yale is one of three sites in the United States to study this new medication, which was developed by a Japanese pharmaceutical company.
"This drug may provide an additional new treatment to the expanding and exciting array of HIV therapies," says Dr. Gerald Friedland, director of the Yale AIDS Program and its Clinical Trials Unit.
Researchers now understand that the virus that causes AIDS multiplies in the human body even early on in HIV infection, says Dr. Friedland. Millions of viruses are produced daily in the human body and eventually render a person's disease-fighting immune system helpless against infections.
Previous anti-HIV therapies, like AZT or the new protease inhibitors, act by interrupting one of two enzymes that help the virus multiply. The new therapy that Yale physicians will evaluate acts by preventing the virus from fusing with uninfected cells in the body and by preventing infected cells from fusing to uninfected cells, thereby limiting the virus' ability to spread. This medication accumulates in the lymph nodes where the highest level of virus replication and infection of new cells occurs.
In the Yale study, patients will be given this new medication once or twice a month in addition to their other HIV therapies, and health professionals will monitor certain lymphocytes and viral counts, the physician adds.
For more information about this clinical research project, call the Yale Clinical Trials Unit at 203-785-3557.