Shortly after the national HIV testing day on June 27th is the one step that may provide a cure. A team of Temple University researchers were able to remove the HIV-1 virus from human cells. “We have a cure for HIV elimination. We have a system to eliminate HIV from the cells in the laboratory,” said Dr. Kamel Khalili, who led the research team.
More details below.
Dr. Khalili and Dr. Wenhui Wu were able to remove the virus by combining a DNA-snipping enzyme with a strand of guide RNA. This combination allowed the team to seek out and erase the HIV-1 DNA; once removed, the cell repairs itself and is virus free.
It doesn’t stop there are Dr. Khalili assures that he and his team are working non-stop to take this technique to it’s further process. “We are working on a number of strategies so we can take the construct into preclinical studies,” he says. POWERFUL!
While this topic remains a scary one, it’s only right that you keep yourself well-informed. More than 1MiL individuals in the United States have been infected by the HIV virus and annually, 50,000 Americans contract the virus. Know your status. For more information, visit lifeBeat.org.
SOURCE: CBS & Temple Health
