medicine
In Germany, the world’s first clinical study with a potentially healing HIV / AIDS therapy with eight patients is to start next year. Genetically modified stem cells with a specially developed enzyme are the main components.
04/29/2020 16:56
Online since today, 16.56
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“It is a clinical academic study,” said Joachim Hauber from the Heinrich Pette Institute in Hamburg. For the first time, a combination of stem cell and gene therapy is said to cut and eliminate the HI virus from the genome of infected cells.
Improvement of existing therapies
All existing HIV / AIDS therapies – meanwhile successfully – aim to suppress the multiplication of retroviruses. This enables the viral load in the patients’ blood to be pushed below the detection threshold and thus prevents the collapse of the immune system in the long term. The problem remains, however, that the DNA of the HI virus is established in the immune cells and the virus multiplication can flare up again at any time.
A technology developed by the Max Planck Society using a “gene scissors” using the artificially developed enzyme “Brec1” is intended to open up a completely new path here. “The principle is to be evaluated for the first time next year on eight patients at the University Clinic Hamburg-Eppendorf,” said Hauber. This will be done at the hospital’s stem cell therapy clinic.
Enzyme cuts out HIV genome
“Blood stem cells are taken from the patients and the genetic material for Brec1 is then introduced into them,” said the scientist. The designer enzyme is able to cut the genetic material of HIV from infected white blood cells or stem cells, thereby eliminating the virus.
The patients then get their stem cells provided with the genetic information for Brec1 back infused. The maturing white blood cells that result from them are also said to be protected against HIV in this way. The enzyme only becomes active if the cell is infected with HIV.
Hope for a stronger immune system
The process was developed under the roof of the Hamburg biotech start-up company Provirex. First of all, prior to stem cell therapy, medication should be used to remove existing (also) HIV-positive stem cells in the bone marrow. But in the future you want to do without it as much as possible.
The hope is that the genetically modified stem cells have an evolutionary advantage and will multiply better through natural selection or mature into more immune cells without HIV. This could result in an HIV-free immune system in the patients treated after the therapy.
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