Sangamo BioSciences Reports Data on Program to Treat HIV

Sangamo BioSciences has released data from its program to develop a treatment for HIV infection.

The data show that Sangamo's zinc finger DNA binding protein technology has been successfully used in human primary T-cells to disrupt the gene sequence of CCR5, an essential HIV co-receptor.

Sangamo and its clinical collaborator intend to use engineered zinc finger nucleases, or ZFNs, to disrupt the CCR5 gene in T-cells to make them resistant to HIV infection to provide HIV-infected individuals with a reservoir of healthy and uninfectable T-cells. Scientists at Sangamo have engineered ZFNs that can be used to make targeted breaks in DNA for therapeutic gene correction or disruption.