Finally, our children could have the chance to HIV immunity, due to a team of researchers from the University of Alberta. The team discovered a gene that might be able to block HIV and prevent the AIDS infection, which is called TRIM22, as Stephen Barr, a molecular virologist in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology stated.

Barr also stated that “when we put this gene in cells, it prevents the assembly of the HIV virus. This means the virus cannot get out of the cells to infect other cells, thereby blocking the spread of the virus,” which would offer the person absolute immunity to HIV and the team also prevented the cells from turning on the TRIM22 gene.

Current medicine was only able to stop the reproduction of HIV into the body, without the possibility of eradicating it, but the team has finally found a gene that will do it naturally. Because of HIV’s possiblity to mutate, medications weren’t reliable, being able to evade them, but this gene can solve this issue.

Also Stephen Barr said that “there are always newly emerging drug-resistant strains of HIV so the push has been to develop more natural means of blocking the virus. The discovery of this gene, which is natural in our cells, might provide a different avenue. The gene prevents the assembly of the virus so in the future the idea would be to develop drugs or vaccines that can mimic the effects of this gene.”

The team is currently trying to figure why does the gene not work on people already infected with HIV. If they will find a solution, they are going to develop new drugs or vaccines that could at least block the virus transmission to another person.