They found the experimental therapy reduced latent virus there by 97%. In this new study, they describe how they have tested the therapy for the first time to treat infections in a cluster of nerves called dorsal root ganglia, near the genital tract of mice. Previously, Jerome and Aubert reported that the drug can eliminate more than 90% of the latent herpesvirus in nerve clusters near the faces of the mice injected with the enzyme-carrying AAVs. For their latest experiments, the Hutch team selected a different mix of AAVs, and improved their results. In the Hutch herpes experiments, the AAVs home in on clusters of nerves harboring inactive, or latent, herpesvirus, and then the scissors go to work, targeting and cutting up certain segments of viral genes. Known as adeno-associated viruses, or AAVs, they are used routinely in gene therapies to ferry genes or gene editing proteins to target sites. The therapy employs three different species of these transporter viruses. The experimental drug, a form of gene therapy, consists of an injection of millions of laboratory-modified viruses that have been hollowed out to carry inside them two different enzymes - tiny proteins that work like molecular scissors. As such, these findings are considered preliminary. The latest results were posted today on bioRxiv, a preprint server for scientists to report findings quickly, but without a critique from other researchers in the field - the “peer review” that accompanies publication in academic journals. “If you ask people living with herpes what they care about, what they care most about is whether they have to worry about giving this virus to someone else, and shedding is how that happens,” Jerome said.ĭuring multiple experiments, the researchers found substantial reductions in oral and genital viral shedding in the treated mice, with many of those treated showing no detectable virus shed. Keith Jerome and Martine Aubert, the Hutch virologists leading the research effort, report the treatment dramatically reduced or even eliminated viral shedding in treated mice compared to controls, an important milestone that the scientists also hope to achieve if the experimental therapy is eventually proven safe enough to test in humans. It is encouraging news from researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, where laboratory studies aimed at curing herpes simplex virus infections have continued despite disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.ĭrs. Two years after scientists showed that an experimental gene therapy for herpes can knock out most latent infection in mice, new tests reveal that it also suppresses the amount of transmissible virus shed by the treated animals. Viruses, Vaccines and Infectious Diseases.Institutional Partners & Collaborations.Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division.

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