Asier Saez-Cyril: "We are investigating natural mechanisms to control infection"
Yes, of course, it is a great honor, even apart from the prize. We are all very proud and happy about it.
Yes, I have been working in a laboratory for more than five years and we work together.
As a scientist he has an exceptional level. But he is also a very committed person, very concerned about the fight against AIDS, not only here, but in the countries that need it most. In fact, he is deeply concerned that AIDS patients in Africa and Asia have adequate care and care for their health, to which he devotes much of his time. He is a wonderful person.
It has been little time to measure its impact on our work, but, undoubtedly, we perceive that the interest of the public and the press has grown. However, in our work, what is most noticeable is joy. In this laboratory we have an especially good environment among our colleagues, and since they informed us that François was going to be awarded the Nobel Prize, we can not remove the smile from our lips.
Our laboratory tries to investigate natural mechanisms to control the infection. Specifically, we analyze a group of very rare people: they are people infected with the virus, with intrinsic capacity to control the infection, without any therapy and for a long time. These people are called HIV controllers. As we are trying to understand the mechanisms of this intrinsic control of the infection, a really attractive example of what we want to achieve with an effective immune therapy, even though, as we have said, it is very rare.
Yes, well, we in a work we published last year, said a strong footprint of how HIV drivers get control. It was known that these people, compared to those who do not control the infection, have a very strong, excellent T-lymphocyte response. T lymphocytes are the cells responsible for the infection, but in normal people this response is poor, while HIV drivers have a strong and effective response. We are trying to figure out why this happens. For example, last year we demonstrated that T lymphocytes in HIV controllers have between 100 and 1,000 times more capacity than those of other people to remove cells infected by the virus.
In addition to our laboratory, other international teams are studying HIV drivers. What's more, right here, in France there is a powerful group of HIV controllers investigating a very large group, and all research coincides that there is a relationship between this control capacity and some HLA, that is, molecules that present the antigen. These molecules know the virus particles in our body and present them to T lymphocytes to identify and destroy the cell infected by them.
However, this relationship is not complete. That is, many HLA controllers have this specific form of the molecule, but on the one hand, all the people who contain it are not protected much less, and on the other, not all HIV controllers have this molecule. Therefore, we have to see what is the participation of the molecule and, in addition, that gives us the hope that there is no genetic base that allows to reach this level of protection. If not, it would be disappointing from the point of view of the vaccine.
Now, thanks to our research, we have information about some mechanisms related to the control of the infection. In addition, we have obtained tools to identify these excellent responses. Therefore, our goal is to see what we can do to generate a similar response. Thus, since the beginning of the year we are working so that with an early therapy we can produce an effective response in the infected organism, so that it can control the infection itself. Therefore, it would be an early therapy, not a protective vaccine.
At the moment we see a protective vaccine, a vaccine that protects people from the infection, quite far away. I don't think we achieve it in the near future. For this reason, interest in therapeutic vaccines has increased. Your goal is what we now say: To generate the intrinsic capacity of HIV drivers, that is, to drastically reduce the number of viruses. With this we would get the infected to live for a long time, limiting the transmission of the virus.
Otherwise, the results of the latest research being conducted with protective vaccines have been daunting, although to some extent we have not been too surprised. What has been the consequence? As all scientists have agreed to return to basic research, working to know how it protects the immune response, what are the bases of this protection, and through what mechanisms it is achieved.
I don't know him, but we would have to see how he manages to increase the response and why way. The activation of the immune system can be harmful to the infection. This happened with the vaccine of the great pharmaceutical company Merck, but at least this trial has served to check the possible damages that can cause vaccine trials and extract some subjects.
Now, for example, there is much interest in a protein, the structural protein of the virus, because we believe that the response to this protein can be more important than other responses. The topic of glycoprotein 120 is always in the air. The molecule can be interesting, since it is located on the surface, so it should be the first to know the immune system, but it presents a great variability.
Of course, we have to continue investigating with vaccines, but I think we have to know what happens in HIV controllers and in monkeys that, being infected, do not develop the disease. Knowing how and why this protection occurs will give us many clues.
Yes, I think we have to be prudent, if not, we risk awakening false expectations. In Merck's essay, for example, a lot of publicity was made and then defeated. I, however, have to admit that many scientists did not expect good results from that research. Therefore, it is preferable to act with prudence.
Before finishing I would like to say one thing: HIV drivers do not develop the disease, but have the ability to transmit it. It is very convenient to keep it in mind, since such a person may think that she does not transmit the virus, and it is not.
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