Trial brings researchers closer to an antibody treatment for HIV

A small trial, one with only 17 participants, showed promising signs in the fight against HIV. The participants were "infused" with HIV fighting antibodies and the patients with the highest dose of this antibody showed a 300 fold drop of HIV in their blood with no adverse side effects. To me this sounded way to incredible to be true. I mean 300 times lower than before the study started? The sample size for this trial was small, but the results were published in Nature, so I was sold on the credibility of this study. Another cool part of this study was that in order to make a sufficient amount of antibodies to inject into the people, they had to be cloned.

The researchers also talk about how the HIV virus mutates so rapidly, that a combination of antibodies would be needed to effectively treat the disease. This treatment could be used in conjunction for with the current antiviral treatments and maybe even lead to a vaccine one day.
For now, the best method of preventing HIV is to educate the population on prevention and safe sex practices. Hopefully in the future a definitive cure will come out, especially for those developing populations in which HIV and AIDS runs rampant.