Scientists cured HIV in living animals

For the first time scientists have been able to eliminate HIV from the issue of living animals.

The virus from the tissue of a group of mice (which had been transplanted with human cells that were infected with HIV) was completely eliminated by a team of researchers at Lewis Katz School of Medicine, part of Temple University.

The next stage would be to repeat the study in primates

Said co-senior study investigator Kamel Khalili.

He has also indicated that the eventual goal will be clinical trials on human patients.The researchers claim this is a world first, saying that to their knowledge, this study is the first to demonstrate the effective excision of HIV-1 proviral DNA from the host genome in pre-clinical animal models [using this method].
Dr Wenhui Hu, of Temple University, said the new study built on earlier research but was “more comprehensive”.

We confirmed the data from our previous work and have improved the efficiency of our gene-editing strategy.

We also show that the strategy is effective in two additional mouse models, one representing acute infection in mouse cells and the other representing chronic, or latent, infection in human cells.

The virus is known for killing the cells it infects, leaving the host open to various new infections, that while harmless to an average healthy individual, could prove deadly to an HIV infected patient.