Tel Aviv University offers a unique treatment for AIDS.

According to the researchers:

• They have developed an innovative treatment that may defeat the virus with a one-time injection, with the potential of bringing about tremendous improvement in the patients’ condition.
• When the engineered B cells encounter the virus, the virus stimulates and encourages them to divide, so they are utilizing the very cause of the disease to combat it.
• Furthermore, if the virus changes, the B cells will also change accordingly in order to combat it, so they have created the first medication ever that can evolve in the body and defeat viruses in ‘arms race’.

KEY POINTS:

• A new study from Tel Aviv University offers a unique treatment for AIDS — a vaccine or a one-time treatment for patients with HIV.
• The study examined the engineering of type B white blood cells in the patient’s body so as to secrete anti-HIV antibodies in response to the virus.
• They had been able to engineer B cells outside of the body, and in this study, they were the first to do this in the body and to make these cells generate desired antibodies.
• The genetic engineering is done with viral carriers derived from viruses that were engineered so as not to cause damage but only to bring the gene coded for the antibody into the B cells in the body.
• They have been able to accurately introduce the antibodies into a desired site in the B cell genome.
• All model animals who had been administered the treatment responded and had high quantities of the desired antibody in their blood.
• They produced the antibody from the blood and made sure it was actually effective in neutralizing the HIV virus in the lab dish.
• The genetic editing was done with CRISPR, a technology based on a bacterial immune system against viruses.
• CRISPR to direct the introduction of genes into desired sites along with the capabilities of viral carriers to bring desired genes to desired cells. Thus, it helps to engineer the B cells inside the patient’s body.
• They use two viral carriers of the AAV family, one carrier codes for the desired antibody and the second carrier codes the CRISPR system.
• When the CRISPR cuts in the desired site in the genome of the B cells it directs the introduction of the desired gene: the gene coding for the antibody against the HIV virus, which causes AIDS.
• Currently, the researchers explain, there is no genetic treatment for AIDS, so the research opportunities are vast.