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Scientists say gene editing may create an immunity to AIDS. →
It seems like there’s a new “cure” on the horizon every week, but this development sounded more promising to me than most:
Back in the 1990’s, researchers took interest in a handful of promiscuous gay men who were able to engage in sexual relations with their HIV-positive partners with impunity. Most of them had a mutation that kept their cells from producing normal CCR5 protein. Armed with that knowledge, Carl June and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania used a highly engineered protein, called a zinc finger nuclease, to clip the CCR5 gene out of some T-cells. Left without the recipe for that protein, the cells are nearly impenetrable.
Apparently, it’s worked on mice. If it works on humans, uninfected people should hypothetically develop an immunity to HIV, while those with the virus will experience a permanent spike in their T-cell counts, “increasing their ability to resist secondary infections and remain healthy.” Admittedly, the whole concept of gene editing sounds a little out of bounds to me, but there’s no turning back now.
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