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A positive effect that COVID-19 vaccines would have on the human body has been discovered. The technology used in these vaccines could also lead scientists to a cure for the human immunodeficiency virus, also known as HIV or AIDS. This finding has been a surprise for them and they wanted to continue researching.
Scientists have focused on the use of mRNA. Australian researchers claim that they were able to trick the HIV virus into "coming out of hiding", which would be a crucial step towards ridding the human body of it completely. Data published in Nature Communicationsexplains that, although it is still preliminary and has so far only given good results in the laboratory, it suggests that mRNA has potential far beyond its use in vaccines as a means of delivering therapies against "stubborn adversaries".
It is a promising technology that opens up many avenues for basic science and research
What is mRNA and why is it so important?
To be able to talk more easily about this advance, it should be said that mRNA is short for messenger RNA. In short, a set of instructions for a gene. As is known, in the case of Covid vaccines, the instructions were for a part of the coronavirus, but a new study has discovered a new application in which it is claimed that they are also for key molecules in the fight against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
In fact, Dr. Sharon Lewin, director of the Doherty Institute at the University of Melbourne, who led the study, called mRNA a "miraculous" tool to "get what you want to places you couldn't before." In this situation, vaccines using mRNA instruct the body to produce a fragment of the virus, which triggers the body's immune response.
An effect that goes very much against the critical current of the application of these vaccines and that Dr. Lewin herself points out: "The fear right now is not rational. mRNA vaccines have been given to millions of people around the world, so we know their risks very well," she tries to dispel doubts if they still exist.
A technology that is "promising and absolutely powerful," according to colleagues in the profession such as Heidelberg University () virologist Frauke Muechsch. And she added: "I think it's not only very powerful from a therapeutic point of view, but it also opens up many avenues for basic science and research."
The fight against HIV: in search of a cure
Today, there are powerful antiretroviral drugs capable of controlling HIV, suppressing it to undetectable levels, but they do not completely eliminate it from the body. In fact, tiny amounts of the virus remain latent in so-called reservoirs, waiting for an opportunity to re-emerge. An advance that could now begin to be glimpsed and would be based, with the use of this technology, on a simple strategy of "hit and kill".
The main obstacle they have encountered in recent years is that the virus remains latent in a particular type of immune cell called a resting CD4 cell. This problem is simple to explain, as because these cells are inactive, they do not usually respond to drugs. This is the state of research that Brad Jones, a viral immunologist at Weill Cornell Medicine, acknowledges: "It's fair to say that the field has been a little bit stuck." A hope they now have in this type of mRNA vaccine: "With some of these vaccines you give a gentle nudge that's enough to get some of these latent viruses out and kill them," Dr. Jones said.
Seeing the success of the Covid vaccines, which used lipid nanoparticles containing mRNA, it was his team that tested similar particles. These carried two different sets of molecules: Tat, capable of activating the human immunodeficiency virus, and CRISPR, a tool capable of "editing" genes. A technique that took these small dormant particles out of their latent state. The next step is clear: to test it in infected animals before moving on to clinical trials. A step prior to what would be a great discovery.