CANBERRA, July 24 (Xinhua) -- The newest generation of HIV drugs and an experimental new therapy were presented at the 4th International AIDS Society conference Tuesday, bringing new hope to patients around the world.

    At the four-day conference which kicked off Sunday in Sydney, Australia's largest city, top AIDS researchers are presenting the latest in cutting edge treatments.

    U.S. HIV specialist Joseph Eron told the conference Tuesday that there were more than 20 anti-retroviral treatments on the market, but most excitement was coming from a new class of drugs called integrase inhibitors, which work differently to others by blocking the HIV virus from infecting new cells, Australian Associated Press reported.

    New data from trials presented at the congress shows the medication is more potent than its predecessors and has fewer side effects.

    Used in combination with a cocktail of the best drugs currently available, it was found to be far superior for treating HIV in people who have become immune to earlier drugs.

    Meanwhile, geneticists have also come up with new ways to fight the disease, in which HIV gets into human genes and damages the cells by producing more HIV.

    Molecular biologist John Rossi and colleagues at the City of Hope Beckman Research Institute in California, the United States, have worked out how to turn off this HIV gene, potentially allowing the disease to be controlled for long periods without drugs.

    The practice is now being trailed in the first patients with AIDS-related lymphoma, with researchers removing infected bone marrow stem cells and growing new ones that have the HIV gene permanently turned off.

    They are then re-implanted with this new resistance.

    "The first step is to make sure there is no negative effects and that it's positive in terms of knocking down viral infection," Rossi was quoted as saying.

    "As long as these cells persist in the patient we will have resistance to HIV infection, with the goal that there would be reduced viral load," he said.

    "Eventually you could control the virus by this approach alone," he added.

    The treatment is still highly experimental, but if early trials prove successful it could one day be given via an injection in outpatient care to people with the disease.