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| AIDS patient |
The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has been the hardest
thing to treat because it inserts it’s genome into the hosts DNA making it
difficult to eradicate using conventional treatment approaches. For a long
time, antiretroval therapy has been widely used to stop the virus from
replicating in the body and thus prolonging the patient’s life.
However, this is set to change. The world is much closer to
treating HIV/AIDS. Scientists from Temple University School of Medicine, Philadelphia
made a breakthrough that will potentially save millions of lives across the
globe. In article posted in Medical News Today, the scientist managed to delete
the HIV virus genome from the Human DNA using a DNA snipping enzyme. The approach
was based on bacterial defense mechanism that protects against viral infection.
The enzyme, referred to as gRNA will be able to find HIV-1 viral
genome on human DNA and delete them. The
scientist successfully stranded and tested gRNA’s 20 nucleotides. The
preparation was then tested on cultured human cells infected with HIV-1 and,
guess what? The virus was gone.
The discovery will go through a few more tests before it is
cleared for clinical use. The next step is to find a way of ensuring that the
enzyme is delivered to all human cells that get infected with HIV virus.
Permanent cure for HIV/AIDS is now within reach.
