“I HOPE THIS STUDY CHANGES THE DIALOG AROUND HERPES RESEARCH AND OPENS UP THE IDEA THAT WE CAN START THINKING ABOUT CURE, RATHER THAN JUST CONTROL OF THE VIRUS.”
In a landmark study, researchers have successfully used gene editing to remove the oral herpes virus (HSV-1) in mice.
While previous research has mostly focused on treating and suppressing the sometimes painful symptoms of herpes, this study took a more radical approach by attempting to eliminate the virus altogether.
“The big jump here is from doing this in test tubes to doing this in an animal,” Keith Jerome, researcher at the University of Washington’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and senior author of a new study about the research published today in Nature Communications, said in a statement. “I hope this study changes the dialog around herpes research and opens up the idea that we can start thinking about cure, rather than just control of the virus.”
Comments are closed.