Trial begins for HIV gene therapy

Gene therapy that could immunise people against the most common type of HIV is ready to be tested on humans.

Recruiting [1]The act of signing up participants into a study. Generally this process involves evaluating a participant with respect to the eligibility criteria of the study and going through the informed consent process. for the trial began recently and those with drug-resistance [2]HIV which has mutated and is less susceptible to the effects of one or more anti-HIV drugs is said to be resistant. are the first to receive the experimental [3](Of a drug) Not licensed for use in humans, or as a treatment for a particular condition. Experimental drugs are studied in clinical trials to determine their safety and efficacy, and are sometimes made available via Special Access Schemes prior to their approval. treatment.

Since the discovery that people who have mutant CCR5 genes [4]The most basic unit of genetic information. do not get infected, scientists have found that by cutting the CCR5 gene out of white blood cells, they can protect a tube full of human cells from the virus [5]A small infective organism which is incapable of reproducing outside a host cell..

The gene editing technique relies on proteins called zinc finger nucleases that can delete any gene from a living cell. In theory, zinc finger nucleases could give that immunity to anyone.

The procedure looks promising. Researchers will take some healthy T-cells out of an HIV patient, clip out their CCR5 genes, grow more of these clipped T-cells in a dish, and then put them back in the patient.

In this first study they will re-infuse approximately 10 billion of these cells back into participants, and see if it is safe and if those cells inhibit HIV replication in the body as well as they do in test tubes.