Glodraph t1_irfkos0 wrote on October 7, 2022 at 6:26 PM

Reply to comment by JuggernautNo6974 in A bold effort to cure HIV—using Crispr by Sariel007

Yeah np lol. I cannot stress enough that it's my personal opinion. I am a student so my knowledge and qualification is limited and estimates on treatments and such are always a bet. But I think we're taking the right steps with technlogies like genetic editing and mRNA vaccines (which are already being tested for HIV). The issue is that the virus, even if it comes in 2 main variants HIV-1 and HIV-2, shows a huge genetic variability even in the same patience; it's like having 10.000 covid variants in one person. This make targeting and treatment very difficult as you need either a "universal" target or a system that can evolve and adapt with the virus. Now you can see why it's extremely difficult to eradicate. Huge steps were made though so I am optimistic about this.

Not_as_witty_as_u t1_irfzbwc wrote on October 7, 2022 at 8:19 PM

>2 main variants HIV-1 and HIV-2

Do they differ with symptoms, treatment etc? Like is one more aggressive for example?

Glodraph t1_irg1pqk wrote on October 7, 2022 at 8:37 PM

I don't really know tbh, never actually studied a lot of viruses in detail, I only know the general mechanism of the HIV one but I don't really know anything as far as clinical data goes.

heytheremicah t1_irgr652 wrote on October 8, 2022 at 12:17 AM

Did a research project on HIV for a genetics course in undergrad. From what I remember, HIV-2 generally has a lower mortality rate than HIV-1 and is endemic in regions of West Africa. Both usually require a combination of drugs (2-3) as usually using only one will lead to drug resistance and these drugs are any combination of integrase inhibitors, non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs), protease inhibitors, NRTIs, etc. Usually there’s a genetic predisposition to acquiring drug resistance in HIV, so genetic screening is done beforehand to best determine which medications to prescribe.