15/06/2025
LGBTQ Nation and the Peter Tatchell Foundation are both reporting this week that researchers have used technology and techniques developed in the fight against Covid19 which may allow for an easier chemical tagging of HIV virus. If successful, the technique could allow for the development of a single, sweeping cure or vaccine for the HIV virus, therefore formally bringing an end to the health crisis that began in 1981 and against which major progress has developed in the last thirty years. 1996, just shy of thirty years ago, saw the end of major death in the Northern developed countries, with the implementation of highly active antiretroviral treatments. The holy grail though, of HIV research, is to find a single cure. This is now a great deal closer than previously. LGBTQ Nation notes "HIV researchers in Australia have figured out a way to make the virus visible in white blood cells using mRNA, something that could lead to an eventual cure. Researchers from the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne were able to get an HIV-detecting form of mRNA into cells donated by HIV patients by wrapping the mRNA in a newly developed coat made of lipid nanoparticles (or “fat bubbles” as The Guardian called them). The nanoparticles got worldwide attention when they were used to carry mRNA into cells in the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. This next step may take years to develop, partly because it’ll require successful tests in animals before being followed by human trials to determine its success and safety ... Even more exciting, Dr. Michael Roche, co-senior author of the research, said the newly developed mRNA method could also aid the treatment of other diseases, including cancer." People living with HIV today live a normal lifespan on medication, and as the Brigstowe Project's World AIDS Day campaign noted last year, undetectable viral load means untransmissable. Nevertheless, the dream of a cure for HIV would mean that we can finally close a terrible chapter for many communities, and focus on healing from the burden of this history.
