I might be wrong here, but iirc the virus doesn’t automatically pass on to the embryo and HIV doesn’t always “take” either. Even a blood transfusion has a limited chance of infection, like 30% or so IIRC
Comment on Get on that grindset
AnyOldName3@lemmy.world 3 days agoThat tests the AIDS immunity, but not whether there are off-target edits. IIRC, the mothers were all HIV-positive, so the children are all pretty likely to be exposed anyway, which was part of how he justified the experiment to himself.
phoenixz@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
eru@mouse.chitanda.moe 3 days ago
the fathers were HIV-positive, not the mothers.
that (besides the obvious ethical concerns) was a big reason behind the backlash from the genome editing community. we had already known a much less invasive method for preventing HIV infection of the embryo in this case, by ‘washing’ the seminal fluid away from sperm (sperm cannot become infected with HIV, but the HIV particles would be in the fluid surrounding the sperm).