"One antibody alone, like one drug alone, will not be sufficient to suppress viral load for a long time because resistance will arise," said Marina Caskey of the Rockefeller University in New York, the lead author of the study published in the journal Nature.
"What's special about these antibodies is that they have activity against over 80 per cent of HIV strains and they are extremely potent," Dr Caskey said.
HIV-infected patients in the trial received different doses of the antibody. The eight patients who received the highest dose showed up to 300-fold decreases in the amount of circulating HIV in their blood, and in half of them the viral load remained below starting levels at the end of theeight-week study.
"This exciting novel study shows for the first time that antibodies may have a place in the line of therapies directed against HIV," said Professor Vincent Piguet, director of the institute of infection and immunity at Cardiff University, who was not involved in the study.
"This is good news for the fight against HIV, but a fully developed antibody to treat HIV-1 might still take a few years to develop," he added.
The antibody is known as 3BNC117 and was originally isolated in the same laboratory where the latest work was carried out.
The antibody is a protein that attaches to the key receptor on the outer protein coat of the HIV virus which binds to the membrane of the human T-cells it infects.
Tests have shown that 3BNC117 is effective at controlling 195 of the 237 strains of HIV - making it a "broadly neutralising" antibody that could be used in many HIV patients, the scientists said.
These broadly neutralising antibodies are naturally produced in about 10 or 30 per cent of people with HIV, but only after several years of infection when the virus has typically evolved to "escape" from these powerful antibodies.
By making synthetic copies of the antibody and infusing large enough amounts of them at an earlier stage in a patient's infection, the researchers hope to suppress the infection and make it easier to control with the help of other treatments such as anti-retroviral drugs.
"In contrast to conventional anti-retroviral therapy, antibody-mediated therapy can also engage the patient's immune cells, which can help to better neutralise the virus," said Dr Florian Klein of Rockefeller University and a co-author of the study.
Dr Andrew Freedman of Cardiff University, said: "Although such antibody treatment would not be sufficient on its own, it might prove useful in combination with drug therapy, as a means of achieving better long-term control or even cure of HIV infection. It may also be effective as a way of preventing HIV infection, in the absence of a vaccine."
- Independent
