AIDS virus to fight against cancer, AIDS

"We are 100 percent certain that there is no risk of accidentally spreading AIDS using this technique because … we know no residual virus would survive," he said. He said the range of possible applications was "impressive" because around 8,000 illnesses are related to gene deficiencies, and about 30 types of cancer could be treated. Up till now the main obstacle to gene therapy treatment has been the lack of sufficiently strong and reliable transporters.

But according to Charneau the HIV virus which causes AIDS has all the advantages and none of the disadvantages of other possible carriers. "It is capable of transferring genes into cells without provoking the spread of viral genes, and thus without causing the organism to reject the manipulated cells," he said.

The transporter virus is to be tested soon on monkeys infected with the SIV virus, closely related to HIV. Researchers will use it to try to stop the illness which normally kill the animal within six months. "The trial will last two years and if the results are promising – if the monkey survives a long time – tests on humans could start within a year, even before the monkey trials are complete," Charneau said.

The announcement comes a week after a team of French doctors said they had successfully used gene therapy to cure four new-born children suffering from an immune deficiency disease, which left them vulnerable to the smallest infections. Charneau works in the viral oncology unit run by Luc Montagnier, an AIDS research pioneer.