Could we cure HIV with lasers?

What do you do when
you have a headache?

You swallow an aspirin.

But for this pill to get to your head,
where the pain is, it goes through

your stomach, intestines
and various other organs first.

Swallowing pills is the most effective
and painless way of delivering

any medication in the body.

The downside though, is that swallowing
any medication leads to its dilution,

and this is a big problem,
particularly in HIV patients.

When they take their anti-HIV drugs,
these drugs are good for loweing the virus

in the blood and increasing
their CD4 cell counts.

But their also notorious for their adverse
side effects, but mostly bad because

they get diluted by the time they get
to the blood and worse --

by the time they get to the sites where it
matters most within HIV viral reservoirs.

These areas in the body, such as
the lymphnodes, the nervous system,

as well as the lungs, where the virus is
sleeping and won't readily get delivered

in the blood of patients that are under
consistent anti-HIV drugs therapy.

However, upon discontinuation of therapy,
the virus can awake and infect new cells

in the blood.

Now, all this is a big problem in treating
HIV with the current drug treatment,

which is a life-long treatment that
must be swallowed by patients.

One day, I sat and thought, can we
deliver anti-HIV directly within

its reservoir sites without
the risk of drug dilution?

As a laser scientist, the answer
was just before my eyes

Lasers, of course.

If they can be used for dentistry,
for diabetic wound healing and surgery,

they can be used for anything imaginable,
including transporting drugs into cells.

As a matter of fact, we're currently using
laser pulses to poke or drill extremely

tiny holes which open and close almost
immediately in HIV-infected cells

in order to deliver drugs within them.

How is that possible, you may ask?

Well, we shine a very powerful but super
tiny laser beam onto the membrane

of HIV-infected cells, while these cells
are immersed in liquid containing the drug.

The laser pierces the cell, while the cell
swallows the drug in a matter

of microseconds.

Before you even know it, the induced
hole becomes immediately repaired.

Now we are currently testing this
technology in the test tubes

or petrie dishes, but the goal is to get
this technology in the human body,

applied in the human body.

How is that possible, you may ask?

Well, the answer is through
a three-headed device.

Using the first head, which is
our laser, we will make an incision

to the site of infection.

Using the second head, which is a camera,
we meander to the site of infection.

Finally, using a third head, which is
a drug spreading sprinkler, we deliver

the drugs directly at the site infection,
while the laser is again used

to poke those cells open.

Well this may not seem like much right now
but one day, if successful this technology

can lead to complete eradication
of HIV in the body.

Yes.
A cure for HIV.

This is every HIV researcher's dream.
In our case, a cure lead by lasers.

Thank you.

(Applause)