An international team of virologists has managed to make a real breakthrough in the field of medicine, Medical Express reported. 

The HIV virus has been completely removed from the genome of two genetically modified mice. An organism of rodent GMs involved in the experiment could produce human T-cells susceptible to HIV.

The popular genomic editor CRISPR / Cas9 was used in the fight against the virus, as well as antiretroviral therapy.

"Our study shows that treatment to suppress HIV replication and gene editing therapy, when given sequentially, can eliminate HIV from cells and organs of infected animals," said Kamel Khalili, Ph.D., Laura H. Carnell Professor and Chair of the Department of Neuroscience, Director of the Center for Neurovirology, and Director of the Comprehensive NeuroAIDS Center at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University (LKSOM).

The experiment involved seven mice; HIV was completely removed from the genome of two of them, while the rest mice had a decreased number of infected cells in the body. "The big message of this work is that it takes both CRISPR-Cas9 and virus suppression through a method such as LASER ART, administered together, to produce a cure for HIV infection," Dr. Khalili said. "We now have a clear path to move ahead to trials in non-human primates and possibly clinical trials in human patients within the year."