A solution to AIDS exists in Nature.
About 5% of all HIV-infected individuals do not progress to AIDS, sometimes for decades. This is due to a still-undiscovered protein in their blood that suppresses HIV replication. As we explain in our video, as long as these HIV-infected individuals ("Long-Term Survivors") naturally produce this protein, because HIV cannot replicate, they remain healthy without drug therapy.
This is California Antiviral Foundation's vision: to isolate this protein, and turn it into a drug - an affordable drug that could treat all HIV-infected individuals worldwide.
We build on 25 years of research. We have access to all the technical resources we need. With enough financial support, we could see first data in patients in five years. Please support our work.
Why should we care? because HIV/AIDS affects 33 million people, of whom only 18 million receive treatment. That leaves 15 million without drug therapy. The rate of new infections exceeds the number newly treated. The UN AIDS Report 2012 says 'there is no sign that yet that the epidemics in Eastern Europe and Central Asia are slowing down.' (p39), with some Central Asian villages reporting an 80% infection rate. Existing Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) is losing effectiveness, much like antibiotics. ART is also highly toxic, creating other long-term illnesses. Newly-developed drugs only work on a limited number of HIV strains as the virus has mutated into new drug-resistant forms. Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) reports that the high cost of new drugs keeps ART from too many who need it.
That means on the current path, we are losing the race against HIV/AIDS.
What we need is a new drug that (1) can slow or resist HIV mutation; (2) is non-toxic; (3) may be effective on 33 million HIV-infected people; (4) can be made affordably; and (5) is made accessible to all HIV-infected individuals.
Exactly what we are working on.
Nature has evolved three ways to fight HIV/AIDS without drugs. We are interested in the second path, called innate immunity. (See below for discussion on Paths 1 & 3). We know that Long-Term Survivors naturally something called CD8+Cell Anti-HIV Factor (CAF).
As long as Long-Term Survivors produce CAF, they do not progress to AIDS. We know that CAF acts by suppressing HIV replication, so it resists HIV mutation. We know that CAF has anti-HIV activity on all viral strains on which it has been tested, so it should work on all HIV-infected people worldwide. We know that CAF is non-toxic, ie CAF itself does not produce disease, so as a natural protein drug is it probably also safe and non-toxic.
We are a nonprofit organization that is raising money (San Francisco event on September 20) to accelerate and "industrialize" the work of Dr. Jay A. Levy at the University of California, San Francisco to discover CAF and translate it into an industrial prototype. To complete clinical development, we will license our CAF-based prototype to NGOs and/or pharmaceutical companies - on terms to keep our CAF-based drug affordable and available to all HIV-infected individuals worldwide.
If this is a marathon, we are at Mile 25. Our scientific team reports that CAF is emerging in their data.
The technical challenge is that this is a very low abundance protein (10-10 or maybe 10-13). Although the biotech industry found and commercialized many other low abundance proteins (best example is the interferons, similarly a family of cytokines of the innate immune system), the industry stopped hunting low-abundance proteins called cytokines about 15 years ago. Hence our A Team of technical consultants - the women and men who are world-class experts protein separations science.
Now all we need is money to cross the finish line. "All" we need is $5M to find the protein, and another $7M-$10M to translate CAF into a manufacturable cell line. Please donate here.
If you ever wondered whether you could make a difference to help 33 million people, this is y/our chance. This may be the first global health drug that we as a community fund with $25 donations, but I suspect it will not be the last.
On a final philosophical note...."A solution." Not "the" solution. Not a "cure" (technically, eradicating HIV). Not "only" solution. Not a vaccine (implies antibodies). Just one technically feasible, clinically viable solution. We believe that we have the obligation to bring forward every possible solution to treat HIV/AIDS.
And among all the thank-you's I could give, one very special THANK YOU to all the Long-Term Survivors who for years have donated the secret of their blood in research studies. You hold the hope of millions of lives. Words cannot express our gratitude.
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Re: Paths 1 & 3...
Some of you are probably wondering, Why not go after the first and third ways of natural resistance to HIV/AIDS? Because others are already working on it.
The first way is to block one of the two key receptors (CCR5 delta 32 gene deletion, first reported by Balotta et al in 1997, much like taking away one of two keys that HIV needs to unlock the door to invade cells. Pfizer developed a drug called Selzentry in 2007 to mimic this activity, but its inital use was limited to HIV-individuals who had failed other first-line ART..
The third way is to kick up antibodies (HIV is insidious because it hides in the immune system, thus evading antibodies in most individuals). A great organization called IAVI that is looking for the "lowest-but-most-broadly-acting" common denominator in certain individuals, to turn their natural antibody/-ies into a drug. Fabulous strategy, but will take years.
A vaccine isn't a natural strategy, but it definitely deserves a grateful shout-out to our friends in the US Army and the brave citizens of Thailand who are making steady progress on developing the first HIV vaccine.