The Hospital das Clínicas (HC) of the Faculdade de Medicina da USP (FMUSP) joins the global network in a new approach to curing HIV. The research, through genetic engineering, is looking for ways to “lock” the virus inside cells and change and eliminate it from patients permanently. Today, HIV can be controlled through medication, but not completely eliminated.

"Eliminating the HIV virus from people is not an impossible thing," Professor Esper Georges Kallás, from the Department of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases of the Faculdade de Medicina da USP and infectologist coordinator of the Research Center at the Hospital das Clínicas, told the Jornal da USP. According to the professor, the nature of the HIV virus is one of the factors that make it difficult to find a cure. Because it is a retrovirus, HIV, when infecting a cell, alters its genetic material, inserting itself in the person's DNA.

The research integrated by USP intends to develop a technique that takes advantage of the very nature of the virus to eliminate it. The technique consists of “locking” it inside the infected cell to prevent its reproduction, identifying the HIV genetic material in the DNA of the person with the virus and removing it. The removal will be done through epigenetic techniques, which is the use of molecules that can modify how genes are read without altering the DNA, and CRISP, a high-precision gene editing technique to alter DNA.

In Brazil, the research aims, at first, to identify people with the virus who have low levels of manifestation and to study the behavior of HIV in their bodies. The study also intends to look at the use of medications to fight it. As the professor explains, the intention is to start building clinical studies to try to understand how these medications act in the encoding of the virus. “It is a difficult process, like any science, and one that requires a series of coordination between several of the participants”, concludes Kallás.

Listen to the interview at https://bit.ly/3BgOlTP