Curing HIV
Pills hold HIV in check for life, but the virus hides in dormant cells and returns when treatment stops; only about a dozen people appear cured.
Open in the interactive tree →HIV inserts its genes into long-lived immune cells, where it can lie dormant out of reach of both drugs and the immune system. Antiretroviral therapy stops the virus from multiplying but does not remove these cells, so treatment must continue for life. A cure means either removing every such cell or teaching the body to hold the virus down without drugs.
As of October 2026
UNAIDS' July 2026 fact sheet counts 41.0 million people living with HIV at the end of 2025, 1.2 million new infections, about 570,000 AIDS-related deaths and 32.1 million people on treatment. At AIDS 2026 researchers presented two more people who appear free of HIV after stem-cell transplants given for cancer, which would be the 12th and 13th such cases if they stay in remission; the procedure is too risky for people without advanced cancer. In the randomized RIO trial (68 people, reported at CROI 2025), 25 of 34 who received two long-acting antibodies had not rebounded 20 weeks after stopping pills versus 3 of 34 on placebo, but only 7 of 34 were still suppressed at week 72. A CRISPR therapy for the virus, EBT-101, caused no serious adverse events in a 2024 trial, yet all three participants who paused treatment saw the virus return.
What is missing
- A way to find and remove or silence the few dormant infected cells that can restart the virus
- A cure that does not need a cancer-level stem-cell transplant, such as safe editing of a person's own cells
- Antibodies or vaccines that train the immune system to hold the virus down for years without pills
- Tests that show who can stop treatment safely, since rebound can take months
- Delivery that reaches people in high-burden countries at an affordable cost
Becomes possible once solved
- An end to lifelong daily treatment
- Fewer long-term side effects and lower lifetime treatment costs
- A route to ending the epidemic, not only managing it
- Lessons for other long-lasting virus infections
Open steps
- Map the dormant virus reservoir Medium AI leverageTell the few intact, restart-capable viral genomes from the many broken ones in each person, and find what marks the cells that carry them.
- Predict who can stop pills safely Medium AI leverageFind blood and immune markers that show, before a treatment pause, who will keep the virus down and who will rebound, so pauses are shorter and safer.
- Antibodies and vaccines that hold HIV Medium AI leverageCombine long-acting broadly neutralizing antibodies with vaccine designs that make the body keep producing them, aiming for control without pills.
- Gene editing without a transplant Medium AI leverageEdit a person's own cells, or the virus itself, so they resist or clear HIV, delivered inside the body rather than through a stem-cell transplant.
- Make a future cure reachable Low AI leverageDesign cure approaches that need no intensive care, cell factory or cold chain, so they can reach the 41 million people living with HIV worldwide.
Where AI could help
Medium AI leverage. AI can sort reservoir and antibody data, but a cure is only proven by pausing treatment in people, which takes months to years.
- Sequence and single-cell analysis to tell intact dormant viruses from broken ones
- Design and ranking of broadly neutralizing antibodies and vaccine immunogens
- Models that predict who can control the virus after stopping pills
Prerequisites
- HIV identified1983A cure depends on understanding how HIV hides in the body, known since the virus was isolated
- Antiretroviral therapy (HIV)1996
- CAR-T cell therapy2017
- First CRISPR medicines2023
- Twice-Yearly HIV Prevention2025