"Gasping": Scientists Make Breakthrough Toward Full Cure for HIV

Researchers say they've taken a major step toward finding a cure for HIV.

As The Guardian reports, scientists at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne found a way to make the HIV virus visible, potentially laying the groundwork for ways to banish it from the body altogether.

As detailed in a paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the team developed a way to send messenger RNA into cells, to root out the hiding virus by fully enveloping it in a bubble of formulated fat called lipid nanoparticles (LNPs). The genetic molecules then instruct the cells to make the virus visible.

Author and Doherty Institute research fellow Paula Cevaal told the Guardian that it was "previously thought impossible" to deliver mRNA into HIV-containing white blood cel