AIDS and DNA editing

DNA editing is often touted as a possible cure for many genetic illnesses. DNA being the blueprint of your body happily sits in every cell of the 50 or so trillion cells that form your body. That is why the idea of changing all DNA in your body to cure a genetic disease is still more science fiction than reality.

But new research claims that some form of DNA editing might help us get immune to AIDS. That is possible because HIV does not infect any cell in your body, but a specific kind of white cell (called a T-cell) that lives in your blood. White blood cells are one of the main building blocks of your immune system. The way HIV hurts its patients is by attacking those white cells and making the body vulnerable to the attack of many other illnesses that your body is otherwise perfectly capable of fending off.

The fact that those white cells are in your blood stream means that they are considerably easier to replace than any other kind of cell in your body. The new research claims that a mutation that renders a small percentage of humans immune to AIDS could be introduced into your own blood cells, which are then injected in you to multiply and replace the older white cells.

This sounds like a very promising approach. Not just because it is possible that it could succeed, but because it can be applied retroactively to cure people who already have the disease and not just to immunize people who are not already infected.

Here is the article for the curious: http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/06/gene-editing-co.html

Khaled