By Rishi Patel C’25
Source: Science Photo Library/Getty
Last year, Timothy Ray Brown passed away. The first identified man to be cured of HIV, Brown quickly became the poster boy for HIV eradication after his successful treatment in 2008. As the scientific community celebrated this previously unimaginable achievement, many grew hopeful of an HIV-free future. 13 years on, little has changed. As the world faces new diseases, economic downturns, and cultural conflicts, the legacy of the HIV/AIDS pandemic–and its undeniable persistence even today–has faded into the background. The bleak future forecast by stagnant funding for research and prevention of HIV is, however, ever so slightly illuminated by the emergence of research projects proposing potential cures to this ravaging virus.
Namely, the application of gene editing to HIV treatment promises to be an avenue by which to methodically neutralize the virus. Excision BioTherapeutics, a Philadelphia-based biotechnology company, gained approval from the FDA early last month to pair an adeno-associated virus vector with a CRISPR-Cas9 system to target the HIV genome. By removing sections of the HIV genome crucial to the virus’s survival, researchers hope to effectively eliminate all traces of the virus within the host.
Elsewhere, in Rockville, Maryland, American Gene Technologies is in the middle of a phase 1 trial assessing the efficacy of AGT103-T, a single-dose product touted as a full cure to HIV infection. This cell therapy-based treatment stimulates the production of HIV-fighting T cells resistant to destruction by HIV. Naturally, HIV is capable of latching onto and destroying CD4 T-cells and increasing a host’s susceptibility to opportunistic infections. The introduction of AGT103-T into the body promises to keep CD4 counts high in treated patients, eliminating this root cause of complications associated with HIV/AIDS.
Though these novel approaches to treating, and ultimately curing, HIV have the potential to change the landscape of this decades-long epidemic in the United States, there is still much work to be done. 62 years after the first reported case of HIV in a human, we are still searching for a cure, but with minimal urgency. Between 2013 and 2019, for instance, the domestic budget for HIV/AIDS rose by $6.17 billion. While seemingly substantial on the surface, $6.01 billion of this budget increase has been diverted towards care efforts (eg. treating patients). The budgets for HIV research and prevention have decreased by $70 million and increased by $10 million, respectively. As HIV continues to take in excess of 1 million lives per year globally, national budgets–specifically that of the United States–fail to spend on preventative efforts like research for a cure, instead opting to spend on patient care. Further, each year that HIV research is neglected and a cure remains distant, patient-associated costs rise, leaving both the national budget and HIV patients worse off.
We are undeniably closer to a cure than we ever have been, but if the lackluster support from the global community to once and for all find a cure continues, millions more will suffer from a virus that has ravaged the world for far too long.