Waking up HIV

Highly active anti-retroviral therapy has helped millions survive the human immunodeficiency virus. Unfortunately, HIV has a built-in survival mechanism, creating reservoirs of latent, inactive virus that are invisible to both HAART and the immune system. But now, researchers have identified a compound that activates latent HIV, offering the tantalizing possibility that the virus can be flushed out of the silent reservoirs and fully cured.