It has been more than 40 years since the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and scientists still don’t fully understand how HIV enters and replicates in human cells, which has hindered the development of treatments.

New research by a team of physicists led by Northeastern University professor Mark Williams is working on a solution.

There is no cure for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, but there are treatments that can reduce the amount of HIV in a patient’s body and get the virus under control.

Williams’ team recently confirmed a key mechanism in the infection of cells that could lead to better drugs.

“The goal of this research is to understand the [retroviral] lifecycle much better so that better drugs for HIV can be developed,” Williams says. “And this is a great part of the lifecycle to attack with drugs.”

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Photo by Alyssa Stone/Northeastern University