Shrinking reservoirs

In a step toward the goal of eliminating reservoirs of HIV that persist in patients on antiretroviral therapy (ART), two new studies show that gene-editing tools can excise the entire HIV genome from infected cells. However, while each team plans to commercialize its findings, some stakeholders believe the idea is still far from a therapeutic reality because the technologies would need to reach every infected cell - a challenge well beyond the current state of the art.

Despite the success of ART in controlling HIV, the biggest remaining technical challenge - outside of preventing the disease - is that the virus inserts itself into the chromosomes of immune cells where it lies dormant indefinitely. If therapy is ever stopped, the virus inevitably rebounds (see "Postmodern ART")...