Potential cure for HIV discovered
US: In a breakthrough that could potentially lead to a cure for HIV
infection, scientists have discovered a way to remove the virus from
infected cells, a study released Thursday said.
The scientists engineered an enzyme which attacks the DNA of the HIV
virus and cuts it out of the infected cell, according to the study
published in Science magazine.
The enzyme is still far from being ready to use as a treatment, the
authors warned, but it offers a glimmer of hope for the more than 40
million people infected worldwide.
“A customized enzyme that effectively excises integrated HIV-1 from
infected cells in vitro might one day help to eradicate (the) virus from
AIDS patients,” Alan Engelman, of Harvard University’s Dana-Farber
Cancer Institute, wrote in an article accompanying the study.
Current treatments focus on suppressing the HIV virus in order to
delay the onset of AIDS and dramatically extend the life of infected
patients.
The researchers engineered an enzyme called Tre which removes the
virus from the genome of infected cells by recognizing and then
recombining the structure of the virus’s DNA.
This ability to recognize HIV’s DNA might one day help overcome one
of the biggest obstacles to finding a cure: the ability of the HIV virus
to avoid detection by reverting to a resting state within infected cells
which then cease to produce the virus for months or even years.
CHICAGO, Friday, AFP |