Harvard researchers have used a new gene-editing technique to create what could prove to be a method for blocking HIV from invading and destroying patients’ immune systems.
This is the first published report of a group using CRISPRCas technology to efficiently and precisely edit clinically relevant genes out of cells collected directly from people, in this case human blood-forming stem cells and T-cells, researchers said.
The work was led by Chad Cowan and Derrick Rossi, associate professors in Harvard University . HIV targets T cells, a principal portion of the bloodbased immune system, and enters via a gene receptor called CCR5 that serves as a doorway into the cells. Once inside the T cells, HIV replicates and kills off the host cells, leaving patients at the mercy of a variety of opportunistic infections.Using the CRISPRCas geneediting technology , the researchers knocked the CCR5 receptor out of blood stem cells that they showed could give rise to differentiated blood cells that did not have CCR5.
–PTI