{"id":222036,"date":"2025-09-17T20:03:22","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T01:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/world-first-discovery-harnesses-mrna-in-the-search-for-an-hiv-cure"},"modified":"2025-09-17T20:03:22","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T01:03:22","slug":"world-first-discovery-harnesses-mrna-in-the-search-for-an-hiv-cure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/world-first-discovery-harnesses-mrna-in-the-search-for-an-hiv-cure","title":{"rendered":"World-first discovery harnesses mRNA in the search for an HIV cure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/world-first-discovery-harnesses-mrna-in-the-search-for-an-hiv-cure.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Australian researchers have made a major breakthrough in HIV research by repurposing the same mRNA delivery system used in COVID-19 vaccines, not to prevent infection, but as a potential strategy to find a cure.<\/p>\n<p>Nearly 40 million people live with HIV worldwide. While antiretroviral therapy can suppress the virus to undetectable levels, it cannot eliminate it. HIV has a unique ability to hide in a type of white blood cells, resting CD4+ T cells, ready to re-emerge if treatment is stopped. This HIV \u201creservoir\u201d has long been one of the greatest challenges in the search for a cure.<\/p>\n<p>Using the same technology behind mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, researchers, led by the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity (Doherty Institute), have discovered a new way to deliver mRNA to the elusive HIV reservoir and coax HIV out of hiding. In a laboratory-based study published in Nature Communications, the team packaged mRNA inside an entirely novel microscopic fat-like bubbles, known as lipid nanoparticles, and successfully transported it into HIV-infected cells, where it prompted the cells to expose the dormant virus.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>Researchers from Professor Sharon Lewin\u2019s laboratory at the Doherty Institute have made a major breakthrough in HIV research by repurposing the same mRNA delivery system used in COVID-19 vaccines, not to prevent infection, but as a potential strategy to find a cure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Australian researchers have made a major breakthrough in HIV research by repurposing the same mRNA delivery system used in COVID-19 vaccines, not to prevent infection, but as a potential strategy to find a cure. Nearly 40 million people live with HIV worldwide. While antiretroviral therapy can suppress the virus to undetectable levels, it cannot eliminate [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":534,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-222036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-nanotechnology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222036\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}