Efficacy of CRISPR-Cas9 in treatment of HIV-AIDS

Abstract

AIDS is a lethal viral infection that kills more than thousands of individuals every year as it spreads the virus via various modes of transmission. The modern era of biological research is exploring genome editing as a potentially effective way to prevent, treat and cure myriads of diseases with a novel genome engineering tool called CRISPR-Cas system which is now being studied worldwide as an attempt to treat and cure HIV-AIDS. Investigations have been carried from multiple research perspectives- from attempts to inhibit viral replication directly, preventing viral integration into host genome and disrupting specific cell-receptor coding genes in host to excision of provirus in latently infected cells in-vivo. Data collected from these investigations suggest potential of successful treatment of the disease. The limitations faced in the experimental protocols and results along with the gaps can be utilized as new focus of research investigation in this area.