Microbiologists in the United States may be closing in on a breakthrough in the treatment of HIV/AIDS. By getting a better grasp on why the infamous virus is so hard to kill, they were able to conceptualize how to better fight it.

According to Rochester's Dr. Baek Kim, the HIV virus has been so hard to fight because it has the ability to overwhelm the body's immune system given enough time. Like a guerilla army waiting for a chance to strike, HIV "hides" in preferred cells where it can increase in number in preparation for a full-blown AIDS invasion.

By itself, it's not likely for the HIV virus to last long in the human body. It needs host cells that will house it for nourishment and safety from the immune system. Most of the cells in the body are capable of self-destructing when infected by HIV, leaving no place for the virus to to live in. Unfortunately for us, the virus has learned to deal with this defense mechanism.

Dr. Kim's team has discovered that by infecting roaming antibodies known as macrophages, HIV is able to cheat death. HIV secretes chemicals which prolong the life of macrophages abnormally, giving it time to do damage and spread out.

By altering the flow of cell life-sustaining substance PTEN, HIV is able to piggyback its way into the different regions of the human body. The most telling effect happens when the host macrophages pass by the brain when the HIV virus secretes toxins that kill nearby neurons by triggering their self-destruct mechanism.

While this discovery may sound troublesome, Dr. Kim says it was instrumental in finding a possible means of treatment for it. As a matter of fact, an existing drug has been right under the medical community's nose since the 1980's: Miltefosine .

This drug was originally designed to treat breast cancer, and later on adopted for the purpose of dealing with parasites in the human body. Now, doctors are looking at it because of its ability to disrupt the macrophages-sustaining ways of HIV.

Miltefosine, Kim says, has another advantage over other drugs for HIV treatment: "The fact that it is already used in humans could accelerate the process of seeking government approval for a new, anti-HIV use for miltefosine, or something like it."

"In the next phase, we will conduct studies seeking to show that Akt inhibition ends the survival of HIV-infected macrophage reservoirs under real-life conditions,” concludes Kim.