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Cancer drug finds HIV hidden in the body

Now, researchers have found a way to force the virus out of its hiding place. Their weapon is a drug used for treating lymphoma -- a rare and sometimes deadly cancer.

David Margolis is a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He has been studying how HIV hides within immune-system cells. He says that in some lymphomas, the drug vorinostat makes cancer cells die. But he says that in HIV-infected cells, vorinostat causes the virus to show itself.

DAVID MARGOLIS: “Theoretically, doing this clinically would be a way to sort of unmask the hidden virus -- flush the virus out of hiding. And that might then allow us to develop ways to get rid of the leftover virus in people that are on treatment so that they could stop treatment and there would be nowhere for the virus to come back from.”

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Professor Margolis and his team studied eight HIV-infected patients who were taking anti-retroviral drugs. In all eight men, the spread of the virus was said to be under control. Their levels of HIV CD4 T cells -- which the virus uses to reproduce itself -- were measured both before and after the men were given vorinostat.

DAVID MARGOLIS: “What we saw in every single person was a tiny amount of the virus detectable before the dose of the drug. And the amount of virus that was detectable went up on average about five-fold, five times, after just a single exposure to the drug.”