One Leap Forward in Curing HIV

A team of researchers based in Melbourne, Australia, might have finally cracked the code to cure, once and for all, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) through mRNA technology, thus giving hope to millions of people carrying the virus.

“Our hope is that this new nanoparticle design could be a new pathway to an HIV cure,” says Dr Paula Cevaal, research fellow at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity and co-first author of the study. “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.”

It has been discovered that the virus can conceal itself in certain white blood cells, meaning that the body has a reservoir of HIV that can be reactivated and that neither the immune system nor drugs can tackle. Therefore, researchers have created a tiny, specially formulated fat bubble, or lipid nanoparticle (LPN), containing a messenger ribonucleic acid, or mRNA, that instructs the cells to reveal the virus. Almost 40 million people live with HIV and must take medication for life to suppress the virus and prevent them from developing symptoms or transmitting it. “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 can reveal this virus.”