Can the magical "gene scissors" bring new hope for curing AIDS?

Author: Duan Yuechu

AIDS is a serious immune system disease caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Since the 1980s, AIDS has become a major public health issue worldwide. According to the World Health Organization, as of the end of 2019, 38 million people worldwide were infected with HIV and more than 32 million people had died from diseases caused by AIDS.

Gene editing is a technology that modifies the human genome. The most famous and widely used one is the CRISPR gene editing technology.

CRISPR stands for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, an immune system naturally found in certain bacteria and archaea. Scientists use the Cas9 protein in the CRISPR system to precisely edit, add or delete genetic sequences.

The emergence of CRISPR technology has brought a revolution to the field of gene editing because it is more efficient, precise and cheaper than traditional gene editing technologies. CRISPR can be used to treat a variety of diseases, including genetic diseases, cancer, infectious diseases, etc. It has been successfully used in the laboratory to change the genes of human babies, transform animals for research, and treat patients with sickle cell disease.

Excision BioTherapeutics is a biotechnology company focused on gene editing therapy. They recently conducted an experiment to try to use CRISPR technology to permanently cure HIV. The goal of the experiment is to implant the CRISPR gene editing tool into the body of an HIV carrier and use it to cut and destroy the HIV in the patient's body, thereby achieving a therapeutic effect.

In this experiment, scientists at Excision BioTherapeutics first extracted immune cells from three HIV carriers and introduced CRISPR gene editing tools into these cells. Through precise gene editing, the CRISPR system will recognize and cut the DNA of HIV, rendering the virus inactive. The edited cells will be reinjected into the patient's body to replace the previously infected cells.

Preliminary experimental results show that immune cells edited with CRISPR genes successfully eliminated HIV. This means that CRISPR technology has the potential to treat AIDS. However, the current experiment is small in scale, and further research and clinical trials are still needed to verify its safety and effectiveness.

The success of this experiment is expected to provide a new breakthrough in the treatment of HIV. If CRISPR technology can be proven to be safe and effective, it is expected to become a reliable treatment method and bring good news to AIDS patients.

References:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/10/25/1082306/gene-editing-crispr-hiv-experiment/