Gene therapy for HIV-1

The HIV/AIDS epidemic continues to be an enormous problem despite years of intense research work. Currently, an estimated 36 million people in the world are living with HIV and about 20 million people have already died. Drug therapies have greatly improved the quality of life of many infected persons, however millions of people cannot have access to this treatment since it is highly expensive. Moreover, with current drugs, it is still impossible to completely eradicate the virus from the body. Gene therapy strategies have greatly improved in the last years but no therapeutic lasting benefit has been reported yet. In spite of this, gene therapy seems to be a very promising approach in the therapy against HIV. This review will focus on the different anti-HIV gene therapy strategies and their efficacy will be discussed.