A promising treatment in development is raising hopes of eradicating AIDS as scientists say they have successfully eradicated HIV from infected cells using the Nobel Prize-winning Crispr gene-editing technology.

In particular, this technology works like “genetic scissors”, but at a molecular level, it cuts the DNA strands of the virus in regions-targets so that “bad” pieces can be removed or disabled.

The gene therapy being tested is raising hopes for a complete eradication of the virus, although much more work is needed to test the method’s safety and effectiveness.

Existing medications for HIV they can stop the virus but not eliminate it.

The University of Amsterdam team, presenting an abstract or summary of their first findings at a medical conference this week, stressed that their work remains just a “proof of concept” and will not be implemented as an HIV treatment anytime soon.

And Dr James Dixon, associate professor of stem cell technologies and gene therapy at the University of Nottingham, agrees, saying the full findings require scrutiny.

“Much more work will be needed to demonstrate that the results in these cellular assays can occur throughout the body for a future treatment,” he said.
“Much more research will be needed before this can be applied to those with HIV.”

An extremely challenging undertaking

Other scientists are also trying to use it Crispr against HIV.

And Excision BioTherapeutics says that after 48 weeks, three volunteers with HIV have no serious side effects.

But Dr Jonathan Stoye, a virologist at the Francis Crick Institute in London, said removing HIV from all the cells that might harbor it in the body was “extremely challenging”.

“Off-target effects of treatment, with possible long-term side effects, remain a concern,” he said.

“Therefore, it seems likely that it will be many years before any Crispr-based therapy becomes routine – even assuming it proves effective.”

HIV infects and attacks the cells of the immune system, using their own mechanism to create copies of itself.

Even with effective treatment, patients go into a quiescent or latent state – remaining carriers of HIV DNA or genetic material.

Most people with HIV need lifelong antiretroviral therapy. If they stop taking these drugs, the dormant virus can reawaken and cause problems again.

Rarely, some have been “cured” after aggressive cancer treatment, which killed some of their infected cells, but this would never constitute a cure for HIV.