Integrated HIV Successfully Cut Out of Human Genome 185
Chris writes "German scientists have succeeded in snipping HIV out of human cells after it has integrated itself into a patient's DNA. The procedure is a breakthrough in bio-technology and fuels hope of a cure for AIDS. The group is only cautiously optimistic, though, as treating a full-on infection would be substantially different than succeeding in a controlled lab environment. 'Researchers ... began with the bacterial enzyme Cre recombinase, which exchanges any two pieces of DNA flanked on either end by a certain pattern of nucleotides (DNA subunits) known as loxP. HIV does not naturally contain loxP sites, so the team created a hybrid of the two DNA molecules, which they used to select a series of mutated Cre enzymes that were increasingly able to recognize the combined DNA. The final enzyme, Tre, removed all traces of HIV from cultured human cervical cells after about three months, the researchers report online today in Science.'"
Slight Clarification (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems like cheating (Score:5, Interesting)
HIV does not naturally contain loxP sites, so the team created a hybrid of the two DNA molecules, which they used to select a series of mutated Cre enzymes that were increasingly able to recognize the combined DNA.
So...this technique won't work at all in the real world. It won't even work with actual HIV even in the lab.
It's interesting research for its own sake, but in this case it has absolutely nothing to do with HIV. They simply found an interesting way to remove an arbitrary snippet of DNA. In fact, to make it work with HIV, they had to cheat and add tags to the HIV sequence.
This is like saying I could break into a bank vault after I replaced the lock with one I knew the combination to. It says nothing about the bank, only that I possess the capability to manipulate locks.
Proof of concept (Score:5, Interesting)
Eventually, you'll want to be able to recognize and remove longer strands of DNA. I'd also worry about the efficiency - randomly removing strands of DNA from healthy cells is a good way to cause big problems. Existing gene therapies that use viruses to deliver the payload sometimes go astray and cause cancer, which is no good.
Re:Slight Clarification (Score:5, Interesting)
An interesting idea that I read somewhere proposed the setting up of Ansari-X style rewards or competitions for the company or team that first finds a cure/vaccine for these unfashionable diseases. This also becomes an easy way out for charity foundations like the Gates foundation, who're actually trying to do something meaningful in this field. Instead of giving grants to researchers much like a venture capitalist, perhaps instituting sizable multi-million dollar rewards is a better incentive for researchers. Plus, there is no need to monitor the charity money to make sure that it is being utilized properly. But then again, this might simply be an oversimplified solution to the problem.
HIV hybridizes (Score:2, Interesting)
DNA Spoofing ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Could this lead to people being framed for murder due to spoofed DNA ?
This sounds like it could destroy the credibility of DNA evidence for high-profile cases in the future.
Re:In the shower.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Proof of concept (Score:5, Interesting)
Think of this as an initial proof-of-concept. Fiddling with DNA is extremely useful - correcting genetic diseases and curing all sorts of viruses that hang out in your cells comes to mind (e.g. herpes). You could even look at curing cancer, since that's typically due to genetic mutations that could be potentially removed, making cells non-cancerous again.
No doubt. I definitely think the technique stands on its own as far as coolness factor.
What I find slightly annoying is the perceived need to validate it by linking it to HIV, which seems completely irrelevant to the actual research since the DNA segment in question could have been anything. Worse yet, it doesn't even recognize HIV at all as the headlines claim - it simply recognizes anchor groups (which HIV does not possess) and removes whatever happens to be between them. Sure, it recognizes HIV that is artificially tagged with these groups, but it would find any DNA sequence tagged with the groups. So what does this research have to do with HIV? Absolutely nothing. Seems like name-dropping to me.
I realize much of this effect is due to the funding climate in academia, which makes it impossible to get money these days unless you're coat-tailing on a handful of high-profile buzzwords. But I still find over-aggressive promotion of one's results to be distasteful. Naturally, these guys aren't the first and won't be the last.
Re:Slight Clarification (Score:3, Interesting)
This aside, I would suggest your idea of "money for results" movement, but realize that research ain't something you can do in a garage with a few bucks of your spare money. You first of all have to throw a ton of cash into it before anything sensible comes out of it. I'd rather see that multi million paycheck as the additional carrot in front of their nose, and maybe tied to an incentive to make that cure available not only to the 500 riches people who can afford it, but essentially also to those that need it most and can it afford it least. Like, say, the millions of infected in Africa.
Re:Slight Clarification (Score:2, Interesting)
"How dare you work on diabetes when there are children dying of malaria!" says the programmer who is working or neither diabetes nor malaria.
"We can give a man an erection, but we can't cure cancer?!" says the office worker who has never in his life put any effort towards curing cancer.