Natural Immune-System Molecule Helps Shield Against HIV

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"Then, maybe you could go with HAART full steam ahead, suppress the virus and prevent the damage that the virus does even within that short space of time," he explained.

But Lusso stressed that patients shouldn't pin too much hope on IL-7, which is also under development as potential cancer therapy. While it's thought to be relatively safe, the treatment might have unforeseen side-effects down the line, he said.

"The [immune] system is so complicated and interrelated -- you can do something good on one side and cause something bad on the other side," he said. "We have to watch what happens here."

Johnston, of amfAR, agreed. "It's all such a fine balance," she said. "Any change in any one of those ingredients can have vast repercussions for how the whole system works."

In a related study, also published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists at the U.S. National Cancer Institute said they have discovered how a virus responsible for some T-cell leukemias evades the body's immune defenses.

The virus, called human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1), can block the packaging of an immune system enzyme called hA3G within viral particles. Under normal circumstances, the body uses hA3G to stop the virus from replicating, but HTLV-1 seems to inhibit this activity, researchers said.

However, in their experiments, the researchers were able to tweak certain amino acids within HTLV-1 and boost the protective activity of hA3G. The finding could "possibly assist in preventing some types of cancer," NCI director Dr. John E. Niederhuber said in a statement.

More information

There's more on the fight against HIV/AIDS at amfAR.