"This is one important step on the path toward a permanent cure for AIDS," says Kamel Khalili, professor and chair of the Department of Neuroscience at Temple. Khalili and his colleague, Wenhui Hu, associate professor of Neuroscience at Temple, led the work which marks the first successful attempt to eliminate latent HIV-1 virus from human cells.

"It's an exciting discovery, but it's not yet ready to go into the clinic. It's a proof of concept that we're moving in the right direction," added Khalili, who is also director of the Center for Neurovirology and director of the Comprehensive NeuroAIDS Center at Temple.

In a study published July 21 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Khalili and colleagues detail how they created molecular tools to delete the HIV-1 proviral DNA. When deployed, a combination of a DNA-snipping enzyme called a nuclease and a targeting strand of RNA called a guide RNA (gRNA) hunt down the viral genome and excise the HIV-1 DNA. From there, the cell's gene repair machinery takes over, soldering the loose ends of the genome back together—resulting in virus-free cells.

"Since HIV-1 is never cleared by the immune system, removal of the virus is required in order to cure the disease," says Khalili. The same technique could theoretically be used against a variety of viruses, he says.

The HIV-1 eradication approach faces several significant challenges before the technique is ready for patients, Khalili says. The researchers must devise a method to deliver the therapeutic agent to every single infected cell. Finally, because HIV-1 is prone to mutations, treatment may need to be individualized for each patient’s unique viral sequences.

"We are working on a number of strategies so we can take the construct into preclinical studies,” Khalili says. “We want to eradicate every single copy of HIV-1 from the patient. That will cure AIDS. I think this technology is the way we can do it.”

The research was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health.