Health News
2007-07-03
Possible HIV cure
discovered
Scientists in
Germany have discovered a way to remove HIV from infected
cells, the Associated Press reports. The study, published in
Sc
Scientists in
Germany have discovered a way to remove HIV from infected
cells, the Associated Press reports. The study, published in
Science magazine, involves a newly engineered
enzyme that attacks the DNA of the virus and cuts it from
infected cells.
"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 Medical School affiliate Dana-Farber Cancer
Institute wrote in an article accompanying the study,
according to the AP.
The study's
authors said the enzyme, called Tre, won't be available
as a treatment anytime in the near future, but it's a step
forward in the fight 40 million infected people face
worldwide.
The enzyme's
method of finding HIV's DNA might be the key to overcoming
what the article calls a substantial obstacle: the virus's
ability to go undetected for several months or years
because of its occasional dormancy within infected
cells. Still, barriers remain before the enzyme can be
made publicly available.
"The most
important, and likely most difficult, among these is that
the enzyme would need efficient and safe means of delivery
and would have to be able to function without adverse
side effects," wrote the study's lead author, Indrani
Sarkar of the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell
Biology and Genetics in Dresden.
Sarkar concluded,
"Nevertheless, the results we present offer an early
proof of principal for this type of approach, which we
speculate might form a useful basis for the
development of future HIV therapies." (The
Advocate)
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