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ARTICLE | Emerging Company Profile

Cutting viruses

How Excision aims to cut out integrated viruses

February 23, 2018 7:52 PM UTC

Armed with a suite of CRISPR nucleases and multiple guide RNAs, Excision BioTherapeutics Inc. is using gene editing to cut out integrated latent viruses from host genomes. The newco is starting with HIV, but has programs to excise latent neurotropic viral genomes such as JC virus (JCV), herpes simplex virus (HSV) and HBV.

While antiretroviral therapy (ART) has succeeded in controlling HIV infection by blocking replication, curing the infection has been challenging because latent provirus lurks in host chromosomes, ready to wake up if ART is ever withdrawn. Multiple studies have explored the “shock-and-kill” strategy of reactivating latent HIV with small molecules, then killing it with ART; but the approach is risky because it involves increasing viral titers in patients with stable disease. It also hasn’t been effective...