Overview

• Researchers at the Peter Doherty Institute in Melbourne have engineered LNP X, a lipid nanoparticle that delivers mRNA into white blood cells to reveal latent HIV.
• The study published in Nature Communications used cells donated by HIV patients to demonstrate activation of concealed virus reservoirs in the laboratory.
• Researchers will next undertake animal trials and extensive safety testing to assess whether the immune system or adjunct therapies can eliminate the exposed virus.
• Many experts hail the advance as overcoming a decades-old barrier to HIV eradication, although some question whether mRNA delivery to these cells was ever as challenging as claimed.
• The breakthrough builds on earlier gene-editing and stem cell transplant strategies and may inform treatments for other diseases involving similar immune cells.