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Cancer Health Home>>Cancer>>Health news Provided by: RELAXNEWS Written by: Relaxnews May. 20, 2013 (AFP PHOTO/JIM WATSON) 'Cure' now part of lexicon

Big names in medicine are set to give an upbeat assessment of the war on AIDS on Tuesday, 30 years after French researchers identified the virus that causes the disease.

Scientists will pay tribute to the astonishing success of AIDS drugs and highlight steps being taken towards a cure -- a goal once deemed all but out of reach.

Entitled "Imagine the Future," the three-day conference builds on the 30th anniversary on Monday of the isolation of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

The Nobel-winning achievement, by a team led by Luc Montagnier of France's Pasteur Institute, unmasked a killer.

"The discovery of HIV in 1983 and the proof that it was the cause of AIDS in 1984 were the first major scientific breakthroughs that provided a specific target for blood-screening tests and opened the doorway to the development of antiretroviral medications," said Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

Introduced in 1996, after many years of frantic drug research, antiretrovirals are saving the lives of millions of people infected with HIV and helping to contain the virus' spread, Fauci said in an email.

By suppressing viral levels, antiretrovirals can prevent HIV being transmitted by pregnant women to their unborn children, and by infected people to their sexual partners.

But there have also been setbacks, particularly in the quest for a vaccine.

Only last month, US authorities halted the latest clinical trial -- launched in 2009 -- after the prototype formula failed to prevent infection.

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AIDS science at 30