Liang Shan, PhD, assistant professor of medicine, and colleagues identified a potential way to eradicate the latent HIV infection that lies dormant inside infected immune cells

Treatment for HIV has improved tremendously over the past 30 years; once a death sentence, the disease is now a manageable lifelong condition in many parts of the world. Life expectancy is about the same as that of individuals without HIV, though patients must adhere to a strict regimen of daily antiretroviral therapy, or the virus will come out of hiding and reactivate. Antiretroviral therapy prevents existing virus from replicating, but it can’t eliminate the infection. Many ongoing clinical trials are investigating possible ways to clear HIV infection.