Scientists eliminate HIV from cells in lab, sparking new hopes for a cure
Scientists have successfully eliminated the HIV virus from cells in a laboratory, sparking new hopes for a potential cure. The Nobel Prize-winning gene-editing tool, known as Crispr-Cas, works in the same way as a pair of scissors (though at a molecular level) to cut away “bad” bits of DNA.
Researchers are hopeful that this type of technology could one day be used to eradicate the virus from a human body in its entirety, though there is still a lot more work to be done before this is a realistic possibility.
The scientists, led by Dr Elena Herrera-Carrillo and part of her team (Yuanling Bao, Zhenghao Yu and Pascal Kroon) at Amsterdam UMC, Netherlands, described their findings as “a pivotal advancement towards designing a cure strategy” in a joint statement on 19 March.
The team explained that they wish to one day be able to develop “an inclusive ‘HIV cure for all’ that can inactivate diverse HIV strains across various cellular contexts”. “We hope to achieve the right balance between efficacy and safety of this CURE strategy,” they said. “Only then can we consider clinical trials of ‘cure’ in humans to disable the HIV reservoir.
