Word: cured
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...connecting these complex medical discoveries to an actual cure is another matter. Harvard researchers hope their work will pave the way to either a vaccine, which would keep people from being infected, or a drug, which would help kill or control the AIDS virus. Their work is also devoted to developing tests to catch people who are carrying the virus and determining how many of them will actually get sick...
However, the road to a cure or preventive treatment for AIDS may well be a long one, Harvard researchers say. "We have a lot of work to do," says Dr. William Haseltine, who directs AIDS research at the Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. "We have to be prepared for the long haul. We should make plans to work on this systematically for 10 to 15 years...
Chemically creating a drug which stops a specific viral function, a method called rational drug design, is not the only way researchers go about looking for a chemical cure for AIDS. Haseltine's lab is also helping to design a drug screening program...
Drug screening programs test tens of thousands of chemicals, first in the lab, and then in animals, to find a drug which might cure or arrest AIDS. The possiblities are gradually narrowed down as a chemical meets or fails to meet a set of criteria...
Even after scientists find drugs which can cure or arrest the AIDS virus, they face additional challenges. In order for the drugs to work patients will probably have to take a lot of them over a long period of time. Therefore researchers have to worry whether the chemicals could harm the body over the longterm. "We must imagine lifelong high dose therapy to keep the virus continually suppressed. We have to think about what those chemicals will do to the liver and kidneys," Haseltine says...