In this episode of Going anti-Viral, Dr Michael Saag speaks with Dr Joseph Eron, Professor of Medicine at University of North Carolina (UNC) about the topic of his upcoming presentation at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) 2025: HIV Cure Research: State of the Art and Navigating Presentations at CROI 2025. Dr Eron discusses the state of HIV cure research including a detailed discussion of why it has been so difficult to develop a cure for HIV. Dr Saag and Dr Eron discuss the difference between HIV cure and functional cure and provide a detailed overview of cure research efforts looking at blocking and locking HIV in human DNA. Dr Saag and Dr Eron also discuss the potential for “molecular scissors” (CRISPR-Cas9) to cure HIV. Finally, they provide an overview of cure research that will be presented at CROI, highlighting the plenary presentation by Dr Ole Søgaard at CROI on Monday March 10 entitled HIV Cure: A Translational Research Perspective. For more information about the topic of this episode, listen to an earlier episode of Going anti-Viral where Dr Saag discusses Vaccine Development with Dr Richard Koup, see links in the resources below. 

0:00 – Introduction

1:31 – Defining cure in the context of HIV

4:56  – Why is it so hard to cure HIV

7:56 – What is functional cure

11:47 – Description of the concept of “block and lock” in human DNA

14:33 – Discussion of tat inhibitors – blocking of HIV regulatory genes

18:02 – Prospect of using “molecular scissors” (CRISPR-Cas9) as a cure

23:13 – Highlights in HIV cure research at CROI and closing remarks

Resources: 

CROI 2025: https://www.croiconference.org/

Going anti-Viral Episode 4 – A Deep Dive into Vaccine Development with Dr Richard Koup: 

• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-4-a-deep-dive-into-vaccine-development-with/id1713226144?i=1000637677124 
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/nXeMt3GMj4Q 

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Produced by IAS-USA, Going anti–Viral is a podcast for clinicians involved in research and care in HIV, its complications, and other viral infections. This podcast is intended as a technical source of information for specialists in this field, but anyone listening will enjoy learning more about the state of modern medicine around viral infections.

Going anti-Viral’s host is Dr Michael Saag, a physician, prominent HIV researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and volunteer IAS–USA board member. In most episodes, Dr Saag interviews an expert in infectious diseases or emerging pandemics about their area of specialty and current developments in the field. Other episodes are drawn from the IAS–USA vast catalogue of panel discussions, Dialogues, and other audio from various meetings and conferences.

Email [email protected] to send feedback, show suggestions, or questions to be answered on a later episode.

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