UNMC Researchers Use Intracellular Molecular Surgery to Eliminate HIV-1
A team of University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC, www.nebraskamed.com / www.unmc.edu) researchers eliminated the human immunodeficiency virus type one (HIV-1) in a laboratory at a genetic level by gene editing based “intracellular molecular surgery.” The new study was conducted by a team that included Howard Gendelman, MD, Jonathan Herskovitz, PhD, Mahmudul Hasan, Bhavesh Kevadiya, PhD, and colleagues from the UNMC Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience.
The therapy contained a biocompatible lipid nanoparticle (LNP) carrying a CRISPR viral excision cargo. That cargo allowed editing of five separate HIV-1 DNA segments. This was in contrast to the earlier studies which targeted one gene and as such decreased the likelihood that the deleted viral genome would recombine and replicate after the intervention was completed.
The study builds on work first unveiled two years ago. In the prior work, a UNMC team, working in a prior collaboration with Temple University investigators, successfully eliminated HIV-1 in a subset of live animals. The team developed a novel delivery platform to excise HIV-1 integrated into the cell genome based on CRISPR technology. The system allowed the therapy to reach then eliminate latent virus inside cells. The results obtained paves the way for animal testing.
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