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.

Related

Dr. Anthony Fauci optimistic about experimental HIV vaccine that uses COVID vaccine technology
The mRNA vaccine was just found to be effective at preventing HIV in early trials on monkeys.

Once inside the cell, the mRNA can attach itself to the HIV within infected cells, making it much easier to locate the often hard-to-find virus. HIV mutates quickly, and the resulting large number of variant strains has made it difficult to develop a single therapy against them all. However, the mRNA has proven effective in locating multiple strains, making it an ideal technology for a possible cure.

Never Miss a Beat

Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

“We have never seen anything close to as good as what we are seeing, in terms of how well we are able to reveal this virus,” said Dr. Paula Cevaal, one of the institute’s researchers. In fact, she said that she and her fellow researchers were so overwhelmed by the tests’ positive results that they sent assistants back into the lab repeatedly to try to replicate the results.

“Since then, we’ve repeated it many, many, many more times,” she said. “We’re very hopeful that we are also able to see this type of response in an animal, and that we could eventually do this in humans. Our hope is that this new nanoparticle design could be a new pathway to an HIV cure.”

While mRNA detection is a vital step towards an eventual vaccine or cure, researchers will need to determine the best way to alter and neutralize the virus, either by modifying the body’s immune response or by introducing other therapeutic medications to help eliminate the virus altogether.

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.

In the U.S., Dr. Anthony Fauci, the infectious disease expert who led the stateside campaign against COVID-19, co-authored a 2021 HIV vaccine study that also used mRNA technology in pursuit of a possible HIV vaccine.

“Despite nearly four decades of effort by the global research community, an effective vaccine to prevent HIV remains an elusive goal,” Fauci said. “This experimental mRNA vaccine combines several features that may overcome shortcomings of other experimental HIV vaccines and thus represents a promising approach.”

Moderna, the pharmaceutical development company that pioneered mRNA technology in its groundbreaking COVID-19 vaccine, has been working on the experimental HIV vaccine in partnership with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (AIVI), as well as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Scripps Research.

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.