The answer to HIV protection may come from yogurt

• Doctors in the United States have modified a friendly bacteria found in humans and yoghurt, and discovered, that at least under laboratory conditions, the bacteria can neutralise the deadly HIV virus.
• The results published today in the international journal Nature, pave the way for clinical trials this year using monkeys.
• Scientists envisage the modified bacteria may one day be incorporated into yoghurts or be taken in tablet form to deliver an HIV blocking drug straight to a woman's vagina.
• A single dose could potentially provide a week's worth of protection from HIV infection, as Toni Hassan reports.
• TONI HASSAN: What makes this development exciting is how it differs from the approach of existing Human Immuno-deficiency virus drugs.
• Existing drugs inhibit proteins in human cells that HIV requires in order to make copies of itself.
• TONI HASSAN: Dr Bharat Ramratnam is an HIV specialist at Brown Medical School on Rhode Island.
• He's one of a team in the US that has genetically modified a good bug found in yoghurt and human stomachs - lactococcus lactic - to release a protein that stops HIV infection.
• They actually probably have some health effects.
• So we chose one of these bugs called Lactobacillus and we changed its genetic composition so that in addition to all the things that the Lactobacillus does, it also secretes a protein and that protein happens to be anti-viral or anti-HIV in activity.
• The modified bacteria will be placed in what's called mucosal surfaces in vaginas and rectums of monkeys to test if the protein can in fact target and block HIV in infected semen.
• The bacteria obviously multiply and so what we're going to do in our macaque studies is to dose the animals differently.
• Given that HIV AIDS is its mostly deadly in the developing world, the new therapeutic approach could be a profound answer for people at risk.