This archive report was first published on 4 July 2019.
July 4, 2019 - A team of researchers has made a significant breakthrough in HIV research, discovering a new drug that can potentially cure the virus in mice.
Dr. Benson Edagwa, an assistant professor of pharmacology at the University of Nebraska Medical Centre, and researchers at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, used a combination of gene-editing technology (CRISPR) and a therapeutic treatment called LASER ART to erase HIV DNA from the genomes of animals.
The study, published in Nature Communications, involved 29 mice, with some of the animals receiving a combination of gene-editing technology and LASER ART. The results showed that 30% of the animals had no trace of the virus.
According to Dr. Kamel Khalili, director of the Neurovirology and the Comprehensive NeuroAIDS Centre at Temple University's Lewis Katz School of Medicine, 'This observation is the first step toward showing for the first time, to my knowledge, that HIV is a curable disease.'
LASER ART is a medication that is effective when released slowly over a long period of time. The medication is tweaked to develop a crystal structure, and is then encased in fat-soluble particles. This allows the medication to target viral sanctuaries and maintain HIV replication at low levels for extended periods of time.
The breakthrough comes as Kenya launches a clinical human trial of a vaccine that has the potential to stop HIV infecting cells. The new vaccine being tested will apply a 'block approach' in stopping HIV from attaching itself onto cells.
