[HIV: vision of a cure]

In 2008, Mr Brown, an HIV positive patient was healed of acute myeloid leukemia, after receiving an hematopoietic stem cell transplantation from a donor homozygous for the CCR5 gene variant delta32. He was able to recover a normal CD4 T cell count and his HIV viral load has remained undetectable, despite discontinuing antiviral therapy. This extraordinary case is a proof of concept that HIV can be cured and has boosted the research, especially in the field of gene therapy. Several groups are working on blocking the expression of the CCR5 and CXCR4 co-receptors, by using either RNA interference or zinc-finger nuclease tools. The aim of this article is to describe their actual stage of development.