The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on Wednesday to fund the development of targeted cures for HIV and sickle cell disease with a view to helping people in developing countries using gene therapy. With most of the populations affected by each disease residing in sub-Saharan Africa, treatments are being sought with regional conditions in mind.

The NIH and the Gates Foundation are investing $100 million in the initiative to develop low-cost gene therapies. The announcement follows President Donald Trump's pledge in his 2019 State of the Union address that the United States would eradicate HIV within the next decade. The Trump administration has also tried to draw more attention to sickle cell disease (SCD) in the past few years, according to a press release from NIH.

Sickle cell disease is a blood disorder that can cause anything from mild pain to heart failure. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a communicable disease that, if left untreated, wipes out the immune system. People with SCD inherit the disease from their parents, whereas HIV is acquired through blood contamination with certain bodily fluids of an infected person. While the mechanisms of transmission are different, both diseases are carried in the genome of infected individuals. Globally, both diseases also disproportionately impact individuals in lower-income communitiesand scientists believe that both could be combatted with gene-based treatments.

The past few years have seen unprecedented strides toward cures for these two diseases using gene therapy, which the NIH defines as experimental technique wherein doctors insert genes into a patient's cells so their body can more effectively resist a disease. It can include inserting a healthy variant of a gene to replace the unhealthy copy that causes a disease, or placing an entirely new gene in the body to fight the disease.

"Dramatic advances in genetics over the last decade have made effective gene-based treatments a reality... Yet these breakthroughs are largely inaccessible to most of the world by virtue of the complexity and cost of treatment requirements, which currently limit their administration to hospitals in wealthy countries," the press release states. The new initiative will focus on developing treatments that can be delivered in "low-resource settings."

Speaking on the initiative's viability, Dr. Ronald Mitsuyasu, a professor of medicine in hematology-oncology at the University of California, Los Angeles with more than 25 years of experience in HIV clinical trials research, told Newsweek that this sort of solution has been attempted in the past, but gene therapy hasn't yet proved successful in treating HIV.

"There have been several attempts to use gene therapy for HIV by either incorporating genes that suppress HIV genes, producing decoys for various viruses required processes needed for viral replication, or substituting inactive genes for functional genes of HIV," he said.

But those living in developing countries have not had as many chances to benefit from these solutions as those living in places like the U.S., according to the press release.

"SCD and HIV are major burdens on health in low-resource communities around the world," the press release read. "Approximately 95% of the 38 million people living with HIV globally are in the developing world, with 67% in sub-Saharan Africa, half of whom are living untreated. Fifteen million babies will be born with SCD globally over the next 30 years, with about 75% of those births occurring in sub-Saharan Africa."

Further, the prediction indicates that three-quarters of those infants will be born into low-income countries and communities. Between 50 and 90 percent of babies born with the disease in sub-Saharan African countries will die before the age of five, according to the release.

So, the NIH and the Gates Foundation's initiative aims to identify potential cures for both diseases as well as partner with groups in Africa to identify candidates on whom these new cures can be tested.

We are losing too much of Africa's future to sickle cell disease and HIV. Beating these diseases will take new thinking and long-term commitment. I'm very pleased to see the innovative collaboration announced today, which has a chance to help tackle two of Africa's greatest public health challenges." Matshidiso Rebecca Moeti, M.B.B.S., the World Health Organization's regional director for Africa said of the initiative.

Mitsuyasu said he agreed that continued investigation into gene-based cures would eventually yield worthwhile results. "I personally believe that it should be possible to ultimately develop a gene therapy approach to overcome ... HIV," Mitsuyasu said. "Continued scientific developments in the field of gene therapy will eventually allow for the conquest of most genetic and viral gene integrated diseases."

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Gates Foundation, NIH Bet on Gene Therapy To Bring Cheap HIV and Sickle Cell Cures to Sub-Saharan Africa - Newsweek

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