Research breakthrough may lead to HIV cure
‘A new study says, 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.
According to the study published in Science magazine, the scientists engineered an enzyme which attacks the DNA of the HIV virus and cuts it out of the infected cell.
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 customised 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.’
