Will there be a permanent cure for AIDS in our lifetime?

[OrphanPip]

Fred is right, generally the strategy is prevention not treatment with viruses. The treatment side of things is pretty good lately for HIV, people can live relatively normal lives all things considered. The pharmaceutical industry will continue to develop better drugs because of patent expiration, and to compete for market share. Also, they get huge subsidies from governments for this kind of research, which has secondary benefits for them in drug development.

HIV is not a neglected field of study, after cancer research it is probably the best funded in the life sciences. HIV is by far the most heavily studied virus out there. And it easily trumps the funding most infectious disease research gets. It receives so much funding it has been heavily criticized for the returns available, given some diseases that kill more people (like malaria) get less attention. This is primarily because HIV is in the Western public conscious.