Study Shows HIV Can Be Eliminated in Mice

A new study shows that the HIV virus can be eliminated in mice. Is a cure for humans far behind?

Findings from researchers at Temple University's Lewis Katz School of Medicine and the University of Nebraska Medical Center that were published in Nature Communications on Tuesday appear to prove HIV-1 could be functionally cured.

"These data provide proof-of-concept that permanent viral elimination is possible," reads an abstract.

Nearly 37 million in the world are infected with HIV-1, scientists estimate, with more than 5,000 more infected each day.

Right now, antiviral therapy can successfully suppress the replication of the HIV-1 virus in humans to undetectable levels (with continued use of antiretroviral meds), while PrEP treatment has been shown to stop the transmission of the virus between HIV-negative and HIV-positive partners, but there's no clear way to remove HIV entirely in humans.

The study does note two known instanced where individuals seemingly have seen the virus eliminated, but for a variety of reasons, it's been impossible to replicate results.

The new Temple/Nebraska research on mice, though, shows promising results. Using long-acting hydrophobic lipophilic antiretroviral nanoparticles (a process known as LASER ART) stops the replication of the HIV-1 virus in HIV-positive mice within days or weeks.

Kamel Khalili, the co-author of the study, told CNN that scientists then can "clean segments of the genome" and entirely remove the HIV chromosome from mice. According to Nature Communications, researchers used fatty-acid-modified prodrugs that were synthesized as prodrugs for dolutegravir, lamivudine, and abacavir "by esterification with myristic acid".

In the process of collecting data for the study, researchers were able to completely eliminate the virus in nine out of 23 test subjects.

It took years just to confirm the results of the test, and Howard Gendelman at University of Nebraska said the work just provides early evidence of what may be achieved in humans. And it will take years of similar testing to replicate results and develop a similar technique using the human genome.

But he's already studying similar techniques with primates, and clinical tests have yet to begin.

"We're landing on the moon," he toldCNN. "It doesn't mean you made it to Mars yet."