Dendritic Cell-Based Therapeutic Vaccination for HIV

Although combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) has changed the life expectancy and quality of life of patients with chronic HIV infection, cART is not a definitive therapy for HIV, considering that it is a life-long therapy not able to eradicate the virus. As a consequence of this limitation of cART, different immune-based strategies have been developed in order to boost the patient´s immune system, with the ultimate goal of achieving what is termed “functional cureâ€?, defined as control of HIV replication without cART. One of these strategies consists of therapeutic immunization with autologous dendritic cells that have been previously pulsed with either heterologous or autologous viral isolates.