CRISPR Medicine News Article Highlights Two New Studies Led by Dr. Kamel Khalili and Colleagues at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine on Gene-Editing Approaches to Eliminate HIV Infection

A CRISPR Medicine News article highlighted two studies led by Kamel Khalili, PhD, Laura H. Carnell Professor and Chair of the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Inflammation; Director of the Center for Neurovirology and Gene Editing; and Director of the Comprehensive NeuroAIDS Center at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University. The study published online in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is the first to combine a dual gene-editing strategy with antiretroviral drugs to cure animals of HIV-1. The gene-editing therapy is aimed at two targets – HIV-1 and CCR5, the co-receptor that helps the virus get into cells. Dr. Khalili is one of the senior investigators on the new study, along with colleagues from the Katz School of Medicine and University of Nebraska Medical Center. The second study was published online in the journal Molecular Therapy – Nucleic Acids and is led by co-corresponding authors Dr. Khalili and Rafal Kaminski, PhD, Assistant Professor at the Center for Neurovirology and Gene Editing at the Katz School of Medicine. Dr. Kaminski, Dr. Khalili, and Tricia H. Burdo, PhD, Professor and Vice Chair in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Inflammation and the Center for Neurovirology and Gene Editing at Temple and an expert in the use of non-human primate models for HIV-1, have been working together to further assess the efficacy and safety of CRISPR-MOGS strategy in preclinical studies. This novel gene-editing strategy is aimed at eliminating HIV-1 infection with no adverse effects on cell mortality.