Good Day BIO: What about HIV?

COVID-19 vaccines were developed with record speed—so why is HIV still incurable? In an emotional episode of the I AM BIO Podcast, we hear from Dr. Anthony Fauci about the war on HIV—and the head of an innovative biotech that may finally end it. 

“We have a vaccine against coronavirus in 11 months, and we've been trying for decades to get it against HIV,” Dr. Fauci says in the latest episode of the I am BIO Podcast, the first of the new season. 

“I felt a chill up and down my spine,” he says when, while working at NIH, he learned of a disease that had killed 26 gay men in July 1981. “And I said, ‘I’m going to change the direction of my career,’ and I did.”

Watch: “We have the tools” to end HIV – Dr. Fauci at BIO Digital 

As HIV research began, activists protested the pace of the clinical trials. Dr. Fauci engaged with them, which ultimately changed “how you do research and you do regulation in the context of an ongoing outbreak.” 

HIV research also informed the battle against COVID-19. Researchers learned to “stabilize a molecule in its pre-fusion, highly emetogenic form,” a lesson used to develop COVID-19 vaccines, Dr. Fauci explains.

The challenge with HIV is that it attacks the T cells that should suppress it—turning the immune system against itself. This means drug cocktails can control the virus, but not eliminate it. 

A biotech called AGT has a potential solution: gene therapy that creates an immune system capable of battling HIV. A “one-and-done” solution that removes the “latch point” that lets HIV attack T cells, Jeff Galvin, CEO of AGT, tells BIO President and CEO Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath. Clinical trials underway give cause for optimism. 

“This is the kind of innovative work we get really excited about at BIO,” says Dr. Michelle. “We will be following AGT's journey to see how this potential cure pans out." 

Listen to the whole thing—and get more episodes at www.bio.org/podcast.  

A new report says we face a growing risk of food shortages due to climate change—but luckily, gene editing gives us the tools to fight back.

“Yields of staple crops could decline by almost a third by 2050 unless emissions are drastically reduced in the next decade, while farmers will need to grow nearly 50% more food to meet global demand,” says Bloomberg, reporting on findings from think tank Chatham House. 

“With pests and diseases quickly evolving, conventional countermeasures simply aren't enough on their own,” explains Innovature. Growers of staple crops are more frequently battling “mini-pandemics” that can destroy billions of dollars in output and disrupt global food supplies. 

Gene editing, including advanced techniques like CRISPR-Cas9, allows for rapid responses to plant threats. 

Consider the banana. After disease wiped out the Gros Michel banana variety in the 1950s, most of the bananas we eat today are Cavendish, which for a while proved to be a disease-resistant, tasty alternative.  

But now, Cavendish bananas are under attack by Tropical Race 4, a deadly fungal disease, which is spreading around Latin America, where 85% of our world’s bananas are grown. 

Rather than seek out a new variety of banana altogether, scientists have responded with CRISPR—editing the Cavendish so the bananas express a gene that they already carry, RGA2, which resists TR4, ISAAA explains. 

The result? A more resilient banana and improved food security—thanks to gene editing.  

The next steps? We must focus on eliminating barriers to biotech like gene editing for crops, to protect our food supply and feed 10 billion people by 2050—read more. 

President Biden’s Tuesday: Visiting the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado, where he will deliver remarks underscoring how the investments in his Infrastructure Deal and Build Back Better Agenda are designed to target the climate crisis, modernize infrastructure, create jobs and advance environmental justice.

What’s Happening on Capitol Hill: The budget markup continues this week on Capitol Hill—we’ll have a full readout later this week.