In a first, scientists led by Kamel Khalili, director of the Comprehensive NeuroAIDS Center at Temple University, report in the journal Gene Therapy that they have for the first time successfully eliminated HIV genes from the genomes of mice and rats infected with the virus.
While rodents don’t get infected with HIV in the same way that humans do, Khalili and his team engineered the animals to incorporate specific HIV genes into nearly every cell in their body, from the brain, heart, liver, kidney lungs and spleen to their blood cells. They then created a pair of molecular scissors using a gene editing technique called CRISPR to snip out the viral genes. CRISPR’s power lies in the fact that it’s precise enough to find and cut out just the viral genes, leaving the animals’ own DNA intact.
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