HIV Has the Ability to Cut and Paste in the Human Genome

For the first time researchers have succeeded in altering HIV virus particles so that they can simultaneously, as it were, 'cut and paste' in our genome via biological processes. Developed at the Department of Biomedicine at Aarhus University, the technology makes it possible to repair genomes in a new way. It also offers good perspectives for individual treatment of both hereditary diseases and certain viral infections: "Now we can simultaneously cut out the part of the genome that is broken in sick cells, and patch the gap that arises in the genetic information which we have removed from the genome."

"The new aspect here is that we can bring the scissors and the patch together in the HIV particles in a fashion that no one else has done before," says associate professor in genetics Jacob Giehm Mikkelsen from Aarhus University. 'Hit-and-run' technique leaves no traces At the same time, the team of researchers from Aarhus have developed a technique that increases the safety of the cutting process, the so-called "gene editing": "In the past, the gene for the scissors has been transferred to the cells, which is dangerous because the cell keeps on producing scissors which can start cutting uncontrollably.