In 1959, the first case of HIV – the virus that causes AIDS – was confirmed in the blood of a recently deceased man.

In the early 1980s, the virus had spread to the US and the UK, with cases multiplying rapidly and causing great panic due to the destruction wrought on the bodies of those who caught it.

Forty years later, we’re far more knowledgeable about HIV, with specific courses of medication allowing those who contract the virus to suppress it, preventing both symptoms and transmission.

However, we still do not have a cure, with HIV positive individuals suffering potential side effects of their daily medications, as well as anxiety and worry about their condition too.

As The Guardian report, thanks to researchers at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne though, we might be closer than ever before to curing HIV for good.

HIV takes hold of a person’s body in such an incurable way thanks to the way that the virus works. It is a master at hiding inside human cells, and though it is suppressed by treatment, it is so elusive that no treatment as yet can locate and conquer it.

But that’s where the new research – recently published in the journal Nature Communications – comes in.

Using mRNA technology, lipid nanoparticles (not unlike tiny bubbles of fat) locate virus particles, surrounding them by this tiny fat bubble, which is then revealed by the human cells within which it has taken cover.

As the Doherty Institute’s Dr Paula Cevaal explained to The Guardian, the researchers were in a state of shock and disbelief as they found that time and time again, mRNA was effective in locating and flagging HIV in donated cells:

“We were overwhelmed by how [much of a] night and day difference it was – from not working before, and then all of a sudden it was working. And all of us were just sitting gasping like, ‘wow’. Our hope is that this new nanoparticle design could be a new pathway to an HIV cure.”

The important word here though is hope.

Indeed, the researchers – while excited by their discovery – remain realistic about how long it will take to fully test the efficacy of the treatment before it is rolled out to humans, if indeed it ever is.

That’s because treatments need to be tested rigorously to ensure that they do not harm people, in either the short or long term, as Cevaal continued:

“In the field of biomedicine, many things eventually don’t make it into the clinic – that is the unfortunate truth; I don’t want to paint a prettier picture than what is the reality. But in terms of specifically the field of HIV cure, we have never seen anything close to as good as what we are seeing, in terms of how well we are able to reveal this virus. So from that point of view, we’re very hopeful that we are also able to see this type of response in an animal, and that we could eventually do this in humans.”

Despite this realistic approach, the team – and the world – wait with bated breath to see if this is the first step towards the cure that HIV sufferers have been waiting for.

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