AIDS virus to fight against cancer, AIDS

AIDS virus to fight against cancer, AIDS
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

PARIS, MAY 5: The AIDS virus, stripped of its harmful components, could become a vital weapon in the fight against genetic diseases, cancer and even AIDS itself, a research team announced on Thursday.

The team from the Pasteur Institute in Paris said it can show that the AIDS virus is capable of introducing genes into an organism to replace faulty genes which can provoke genetic diseases. The virus could also be used as a "transporter" to deliver a vaccine to suppress cancer-tumours, or in the case of AIDS to introduce blocking genes to stop the spread of the virus. The discovery - published in the American Journal Cell - was made by 36-year-old Dr Pierre Charneau, who described it as a "spectacular breakthrough." "All the genes in the (AIDS) virus would be replaced by `healing-genes', and we would only keep from the actual virus the machinery which allows it to penetrate into cells," he said.

"We are 100 percent certain that there is no risk of accidentally spreading AIDS using this technique because ... we know no residual virus would survive," he said. He said the range of possible applications was "impressive" because around 8,000 illnesses are related to gene deficiencies, and about 30 types of cancer could be treated. Up till now the main obstacle to gene therapy treatment has been the lack of sufficiently strong and reliable transporters.

But according to Charneau the HIV virus which causes AIDS has all the advantages and none of the disadvantages of other possible carriers. "It is capable of transferring genes into cells without provoking the spread of viral genes, and thus without causing the organism to reject the manipulated cells," he said.

The transporter virus is to be tested soon on monkeys infected with the SIV virus, closely related to HIV. Researchers will use it to try to stop the illness which normally kill the animal within six months. "The trial will last two years and if the results are promising - if the monkey survives a long time - tests on humans could start within a year, even before the monkey trials are complete," Charneau said.

The announcement comes a week after a team of French doctors said they had successfully used gene therapy to cure four new-born children suffering from an immune deficiency disease, which left them vulnerable to the smallest infections. Charneau works in the viral oncology unit run by Luc Montagnier, an AIDS research pioneer.