Anti-HIV drug is “Breakthrough of the Year”

Research data show that a six-monthly injection of the drug lenacapavir effectively protects against infection with the virus. Previously used HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), such as Truvada, should be taken as a daily tablet.

Promotional period of six months
The drug’s development represents a similar advance in HIV prevention as previous breakthroughs with antiretroviral drugs, said editor-in-chief Holden Thorp. “Lenacapavir’s six-month duration of action makes a big difference and provides a new and better way to make prophylaxis available to more people around the world,” Thorp continued.

The manufacturer Gilead wants to apply for approval for HIV protection in many countries. Focused efforts are also being made to provide care in poorer countries. The drug should be offered prophylactically to people at high risk of HIV infection.

In addition to the ‘Breakthrough of the Year’, ‘Science’ had many other highlights from the scientific world. This year, these new approaches, so-called “Chimeric Antigen Receptor” cells (“CAR-T cells” for short), include not only against cancer, but now also against autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis or lupus. Also mentioned were discoveries of new galaxies with the ‘James Webb Space Telescope’ (JWST) – the ‘breakthrough’ of 2022 – new RNA-based pesticides, the discovery that a marine algae with a kind of mini-organ in its cells produces nitrogen from their environment, new insights into when and how multicellular organisms were formed, an extension of the ideas surrounding plate tectonics or the progress of the American space company SpaceX with its large rocket “Starship.”

Evidence of a new form of magnetism
Evidence of a new form of magnetism and advances in decoding ancient DNA also bear the signature of Austrian researchers. Samples of the candidate manganese telluride for ‘alter magnetism’ were produced under special conditions at the University of Linz and sent to Switzerland for testing. There, it was shown using photoemission spectroscopy that it is an ‘age magnet’, as the researchers reported in February in the journal ‘Nature’. Linz physicist Gunther Springholz, who was involved in the work, explained at the time that “for the first time, the existence of a completely new class of magnetic materials could be experimentally proven.”

Relationships from ancient DNA
Austrian scientists Harald Ringbauer and David Reich, working at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, were again involved in a project where ancient DNA could be used to determine exact relationships that existed thousands of years ago.