中国医学新突破

翻译编辑：清波门

Chinese scientists use CRISPR tool on HIV patient for the first time 中国科学家首次对艾滋病患者使用基因编辑工具

By Julie Zaugg and Serenitie Wang, CNN

Updated 0658 GMT (1458 HKT) September 13, 2019

CNN新闻，朱莉·佐格和塞雷尼蒂·王报道

更新于2019年9月13日格林尼治时间0658(香港时间1458)

What is CRISPR Cas9 gene editing?

• 什么是CRISPR Cas9基因编辑?

**Beijing (CNN)**The 27-year-old patient's prospects were bleak. In May 2016, he found out he had AIDS. Two weeks later, he was told he had acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

But doctors offered the Chinese citizen a ray of hope: a bone marrow transplant to treat his cancer and an extra experimental treatmentto try to rid his system of HIV,according to a new paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

This involved using the gene editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 to delete a gene known as CCR5 from bone marrow stem cells taken from a donor, before transplanting them into the patient, Peking University scientists said in the study.

"After being edited, the cells -- and the blood cells they produce -- have the ability to resist HIV infection," lead scientist Deng Hongkui told CNN Friday.

People who carry defective copies of CCR5 are highly immune to HIV, because the virus uses a protein made by this gene to gain entry into an infected person's cells. Two men, known as the Berlin patient and the London patient, became the first people in the world to be cured of HIV after receiving bone marrow transplants from donors who had the mutation naturally.