Steady diet of protein fighting HIV

Recently it has been discovered that a protein that helps to suppress cancer can also be used to fend off the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. Mathias Lichterfeld, an infectious disease physician, has presented this new data. The protein p21 has been found in ample amounts in a select group of HIV infected patients that rarely develop AIDS.
This group of people that seem to be unaffected by the virus have been put under the name of long-term nonprogressors. This groups seems to have naturally been able to produce copious amounts of the protein p21 through their genetics. Four different groups of people were compared in the study. 14 who were HIV negative, 16 with HIV that had progressed, 10 with HIV who were undergoing treatment and 15 whose HIV infection had totally stalled. The last group of nonprogressors were so proficient that the virus was undetectable in their system. This rare group of nonprogressors consists of 1% or fewer of the population infected with the virus. Scientists are referring to this group of people as the elite controllers.
HIV fundamentally attacks CD4 T cells in the body. These cells are responsible for producing p21 which fights off the virus. In the group of elite controllers it was found that their CD4 T cells produced anywhere from 10 to 100 times more p21 than other patients. This difference is not quite a subtle difference but a remarkable one.
Before I had read this article I had thought that there would never be a cure for HIV or AIDS, at least not for a handful of years. But now with this discovery we may be able to find a way to produce a remedy that helps to multiply the amount of p21 from the CD4 T cells.