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Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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A new study by Harvard researchers could help doctors quickly and inexpensively create new drug combinations for HIV-infected patients that reduce the likelihood of the virus becoming resistant to the drugs.
As described in a paper published in Nature Medicine, a team of researchers led by Martin Nowak, a professor of Mathematics and Biology and director of the Program in Evolutionary Dynamics, has developed a technique that medical researchers can use to predict the outcome of various treatments and predict whether HIV will become resistant to them.
"In our paper, we explain a method for predicting through modelling whether patients will develop resistance to treatment with certain drugs," explained Alison Hill, a biophysics PhD student and co-author of the paper.
"Compared to the time and expense of clinical trials, this method offers a relatively easy way to make these predictions. And, as described in the paper, our results match what doctors see in the clinical setting."
"This is a mathematical tool that will help guide clinical trials. Currently, researchers use trial and error to determine the optimal combination of drugs, but our approach uses a mathematical understanding of evolution to make the process logical, mathematically sound."
In developing their method, the Harvard scientists used previous studies that described how HIV responds to different doses of different drugs.
The fact is that if the dose of the drug is insufficient, the virus in the human body increases its ability to replicate and grow. At the same time, if the dose of the drug is too high, the risk of mutation of the virus increases, which will lead to its resistance to a specific drug.
Since the most effective treatment for HIV-infected patients is a combination of several drugs, the new method, based on data from previous studies and mathematical calculations, can make it possible to determine the optimal combination of different drugs in such a "cocktail".
The developers of the new mathematical modeling system say their project will give HIV-infected people new hope by enabling doctors to develop better, less expensive treatments.