The surprising finding that an antibody treatment can push SIV-infected monkeys into prolonged remission, even after antiviral drugs are stopped, continues to rumble across the internet.

Blue circles show how viral levels stayed low even after antiretroviral drugs were stopped.

The Science paper was featured on NIH director Francis Collins’ blog this week. NIAID director Anthony Fauci has been giving presentations on the research, which emerged from a collaboration from his lab and Tab Ansari’s at Emory. Fauci’s talk at the recent HIV prevention meeting in Chicago is viewable here.

At Lab Land, we were pleased to see that the watchdogs at Treatment Action Group had this to say:

“Media coverage of the paper has generally been accurate, but has had to wrestle with the uncertainty that exists among scientists regarding how ART-free control of viral load should be described.”

HIV pioneer Robert Gallo noted in an article accompanying the Science paper that the anti-integrin antibody treatment represents an emerging alternative to the vaunted “shock and kill” strategy, which he termed “soothe and snooze.” Note to reporters: the upcoming “Strategies for an HIV cure” conference at NIH in mid-November might be a good chance to compare the different strategies and put them in perspective.

Follow-up clinical research is underway at NIAID and additional studies at Emory are probing the mechanism of action of the anti-integrin antibody.