There are various home remedies and medicines for treating herpes viruses of the herpes simplex (HSV) type, but none of these substances can have a curative, i.e. healing, effect, but only alleviate the symptoms. However, there are people who have to live with painful cold sores all the time, because infection with this type of virus is always latent in the body. They break out every now and then, rarely in some cases and frequently, painfully and violently in others. For these patients, in particular, the new gene therapy approach is a blessing, because researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, USA, headed by Professor Keith Jérôme, MD, have developed it so that the HSV-1 (lip herpes) herpes viruses can be destroyed forever, as study author Martine Aubert reports. Herpes viruses can also be responsible for an increased risk of cancer in humans. In addition, two-thirds of the world population is infected with the virus, which however in most cases slumbers in cells and is inactive. In animal experiments with infected mice, it was shown that so-called meganucleases, i.e. artificially adapted enzymes that can specifically change genes, attack the viral DNA at two points, so that it is destroyed. So-called gene scissors are used for the destruction, which specifically attacks the cells in which the virus is dormant. With the help of the gene scissors, the virus is damaged with two cuts in such a way that it can no longer be repaired. In the mouse model, 92 percent of the herpes viruses were rendered harmless in this way, enough to completely and permanently prevent relapses of the disease. A cure instead of suppression of symptoms may also be possible with genital herpes (HSV-2), the study results showed. However, clinical trials have yet to provide evidence in humans.
