HIV Treatment Getting Boost From Gene Therapy [Trial Results]

HIV treatment might soon be helped along through the use of gene therapy. An early stage trial by Sangamo BioSciences has found that gene therapy can help reduce levels of the virus, even eliminating it in one patient.

The company warns that their early study only involved a small group of 10 people who helped test the SB-728-T gene therapy process. The method was designed to disrupt the CCR5 gene that is used by HIV to infect cells found in the immune system.

The hope is that gene therapy can help end the need for antiretroviral drugs which are now used to fight back the AIDS virus by fighting back HIV viral replication.

According to Reuters:

Trial results presented in Chicago on Sunday at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy show a “statistically significant relationship between estimated modification of both copies of the CCR5 gene and viral load,” said Dr. Carl June, trial investigator and director of translational research at the University of Pennsylvania’s cancer research institute.

Research has shown that just a single infusion of the treatment vastly improved immune system damage in almost all subjects analyzed during first trial treatment.

The study helps to hope the 33 million people worldwide who suffer from the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

More study’s will be revealed in the future, until then the use of such gene therapy is merely a possibility for the future.