Doctors near HIV cure with ‘previously impossible' discovery: ‘We have never seen anything close to as good'
An estimated 39 million people around the world are living with HIV — and, while treatment options can ensure they have long, healthy lives, there is no known cure.
Antiretroviral therapy (ART) — the most effective current treatment — can reduce HIV levels in the body so low the virus is almost undetectable.
An estimated 39 million people around the world are living with HIV.
dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images
However, the fact that the virus can hide in certain white blood cells has been a major hurdle in fully eradicating it.
Now, researchers in Australia have developed a novel lipid nanoparticle, dubbed LNP X, capable of delivering mRNA into these elusive cells.
Once inside, the mRNA instructs the cells to reveal the concealed virus, potentially allowing the immune system or additional therapies to target and destroy it.
Paula Cevaal, research fellow at the Doherty Institute and co-first author of the study, told the Guardian that this remarkable scientific feat was 'previously thought impossible.'
'In the field of biomedicine, many things eventually don't make it into the clinic — that is the unfortunate truth; I don't want to paint a prettier picture than what is the reality,' Cevaal said.
Researchers in Australia have developed a novel lipid nanoparticle, dubbed LNP X, capable of delivering mRNA into white blood cells harboring HIV (pictured here).
Corona Borealis – stock.adobe.com
'But in terms of specifically the field of HIV cure, we have never seen anything close to as good as what we are seeing, in terms of how well we are able to reveal this virus,' Cevaal added.
'So from that point of view, we're very hopeful that we are also able to see this type of response in an animal, and that we could eventually do this in humans.'
The results were published last week in the journal Nature Communications.
While it could take years to get to human clinical trials — the implications are enormous.
The findings add to the latest scientific advancements that suggest a cure for HIV could be on the horizon.
Last year, researchers in Amsterdam used gene-editing technology to eliminate all traces of the virus from cells in the laboratory.
And last July, a 60-year-old German man was declared HIV-free, making him the seventh person to be cured.
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