GEN Interviews Drs. Kamel Khalili and Tricia Burdo about Temple Research Which Shows Novel Treatment Based on Gene Editing Safely and Effectively Removes HIV-Like Virus from Genomes of Non-Human Primates

GEN interviewed Kamel Khalili, PhD, Laura H. Carnell Professor and Chair of the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Inflammation at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, and Tricia H. Burdo, PhD, Professor and Vice Chair in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Inflammation at the Katz School of Medicine, about groundbreaking work published online in the journal Gene Therapy, which shows a single injection of a novel CRISPR gene-editing treatment safely and efficiently removes SIV – a virus related to the AIDS-causing agent HIV – from the genomes of non-human primates. Drs. Khalili and Burdo are co-corresponding authors on the study, which complements previous experiments as the basis for the first-ever clinical trial of an HIV gene-editing technology in human patients, which was authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2022.