© Britta Pedersen / Global Look Press
"These super-engineered antibodies seem to go beyond the natural and could have more applications than we have imagined to date," Prof Linda-Gail Bekker, president of the International Aids Society, was cited as saying by Silicon Republic.
"As a doctor in Africa, I feel the urgency to confirm these findings in humans as soon as possible," she added.
HIV is so resistant to treatment because of its ability to both camouflage itself in our bodies and mutate rapidly to fight off both our own natural antibodies and external treatments introduced to our systems.
However, a small minority of HIV patients develop what are known as "broadly neutralising antibodies" which are particularly adept at fighting the infection.
This latest collaboration between the US National Institutes of Health and the Paris-based pharmaceutical company Sanofi is unique in that it combines three such antibodies to form what is called a "tri-specific antibody" - essentially a superweapon in the fight against HIV. At present, the best naturally occurring antibodies target 90 percent of HIV strains.
The tri-specific antibody attacks three critical parts of the virus simultaneously, effectively eliminating any possibility of the virus mutating fast enough to fight off the antibodies.
"We're getting 99% coverage, and getting coverage at very low concentrations of the antibody,"said Dr Gary Nabel, one of the authors of the report.
A total of 24 monkeys were first given the tri-specific antibody, before being injected with the HIV virus. None of them developed an infection.
Human trials are scheduled to begin in 2018 with a view to developing a highly effective AIDS vaccine, though the work could also be used in treatments for other diseases.
"Trispecific Abs thus constitute a platform to engage multiple therapeutic targets through a single protein, and could be applicable for diverse diseases, including infections, cancer and autoimmunity," Nobel said.
Anybody who comes out of treatment alive and well does so in *spite* of the mad science.
It's just not profitable to recognize that so-called retroviruses are vital parts of cellular biology; -not when you can label them 'enemy' and keep a multi-billion dollar industry spinning. Dead people, so long as they're not you or me, are just the cost of doing business. They should have known better!
But hey, let's not allow objective reality to dim the value of a compelling bit of narrative candy. We mustn't hurt anybody's feelings, after all!
It's far better to perpetuate the mass-poisoning of countless thousands rather than entertain the frightful idea that we were all just being really stupid and ignorant the whole time. Heavens! That would be BAD, and bad things aren't allowed to exist. -Not unless we can externalize them and destroy them with drugs (or laws and bullets).