evidence: "A critical factor to finding a cure for AIDS is to solve the problem of HIV latency," said Warner Greene, MD, PhD who leads all virology and immunology research at Gladstone. "If we can inhibit latency, then a cure for HIV-infected patients could be within our reach." AIDS has killed more than 25 million people around the world since first being identified some 30 years ago. In the United States alone, more than one million people live with HIV/AIDS at an annual cost of $34 billion. Patients require lifelong treatment for AIDS because the HIV virus persists in a dormant and drug-insensitive form. Better understanding this latency, and developing new ways to attack it, could finally make it possible to cure HIV-infected patients.