Reengineering Life
To Find a Cure for HIV, Scientists Are Gene Editing Monkey Embryos
They used CRISPR to instill a genetic mutation that protects against the virus
Reengineering Life is a series from Future Human about the astonishing ways genetic technology is changing humanity and the world around us.
In 2008, Timothy Ray Brown became the first person to be cured of HIV. The year before, he received a bone marrow transplant to treat his leukemia that doctors hoped would treat his HIV, too.
In a bone marrow transplant, a person receives an infusion of blood stem cells from a donor, which find their way to the bone marrow and start making new, healthy blood cells. The donor, in Brown’s case, wasn’t just any donor: It was a person who had a rare genetic mutation in a gene called CCR5 that effectively blocks HIV from entering cells. With these stem cells now in his body, making new blood cells, Brown was becoming immune to HIV, too.
Years after receiving the treatment and going off of antiretroviral drugs, doctors could no longer detect HIV in Brown’s blood. In 2019, a second HIV patient was deemed cured after receiving the same treatment as Brown. Now, scientists have successfully edited the embryos of macaque monkeys using CRISPR to…
