.. In mice.
It is unknown if it will work in humans. In addition, what are the long term consequences of causing multiple DNA cuts in nerve cells that the DNA repair mechanism cannot repair?
There is still a very long, long way to go.
It is unknown if it will work in humans. In addition, what are the long term consequences of causing multiple DNA cuts in nerve cells that the DNA repair mechanism cannot repair?
There is still a very long, long way to go.
If I read the article correctly the "cuts" are made to the DNA of the virus, not the nerve cell itself. [1]
[1] The hidden herpes viruses are disabled by an injection that tracks down infected nerve cells and induces them to make special gene-cutting enzymes, which work like a molecular scissors, to slash viral genes in specific places. Much of the team’s meticulous work of the past five years has involved finding better ways to target infected clusters of nerve cells and to thwart the virus’s ability to quickly repair the cuts to its genes.
To further clarify, the herpes virus leaves DNA plasmids inside the cell nucleus; the virus' DNA is NOT incorporated into the cell's genome (like HIV) and the meganuclease delivered by the AAV cuts apart those plasmids -- not the cell's own DNA -- and in this version actually leaves behind its own plasmid that acts as a sentinel making more meganucleases to guard against future HSV infections in that cell. The researchers are investigating ways to remove those AAV plasmids when the job is done for added safety.
We are becoming better with the molecular scissors, but 100 percent accuracy is AFAIK not there yet.
Again, I think the research and techniques are really cool, but your comment seems quite valid to me.
Having a vaccine is probably about the slowest way to figure that out, but if it turns out to be true then the problem is already solved.
According to the article, the researchers are currently focused on HSV-1, and may work their way to HSV-2.
At first glance, they're certainly reluctant to do so.
You can go blind, lose your sense of smell permanently, and get encephalitis from bad herpes outbreaks. It isn't just an inconvenience to those people.
And because herpes infects practically the entirety of the population, these problems are more common than you would expect.
And that's before we start chewing through all the viral data were going to get due to everybody actually paying attention to symptoms due to Covid. I suspect that the "viral hypothesis" people are going to have a field day for the next 10 years.
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