Gene Editing May Have Cured HIV. Here’s Why We’re Not Celebrating.
There is a treatment out there that could prevent HIV infections. At the very least, it could prevent those infections from becoming AIDS. This same treatment could prevent certain cancers and help stop many other viruses from gaining a foothold in the body. It could save millions of lives. So why don’t we use it?
Before we get there, let’s talk about what this treatment is.
It’s an itsy-bitsy genetic modification. That’s all. We just need to pop out a few bits of your DNA and HIV can no longer affect you. It’s the same genetic modification that Chinese scientist, He JianKui, used on those twins last week. Nerds call it “knocking out the CCR5 gene.” You just need to chop out a few chunks of DNA and, suddenly, you’re all but immune to HIV. If you don’t have this gene, HIV proteins cannot enter your cells and cannot infect you. The children that this Doctor genetically modified have exactly that genetic change. They’re likely immune from HIV. That sounds pretty appealing, but, as you may imagine, knocking it out is not so simple and the loss of this gene could lead to dire consequences.
So why don’t we knock it out? Why don’t scientists just kick it off so we can prevent most HIV infections?
