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Scientists are planning to use human immunodeficiencyvirus, one of mankinds most feared viruses, as a carrier of genes which can fight cancer and a range of diseases that cannot be cured. The experts say HIV has an almost perfect ability to avoid the bodys immunedefenses, making it ideal for carrying replacement genes into patients bodies, according to the Observer. A team at the California-based Salk Institute, one of the worlds leading research centers on biological sciences, has created a special new breed of HIV and has started negotiations with the US Food and Drug Administrationto begin clinical gene therapy trials this year. The first trials are expected to involve patients suffering from cancers that cannot be cured by surgery although project leader Professor Inder Verma said the HIV technique would have far wider applications. The plan remains very likely to cause controversy since it involves making use of a virus which has caused more than 22 million deaths around the world in the past two decades. Verma said that the idea of using HIV for a beneficial purpose was shocking but the fierce nature of HIV had disappeared by having all six of the potentially deadly genes removed. Illnesses such as various cancers are caused when a gene in a patients body fails to work properly. In the past two years, breakthroughs in geneticshave led gene therapy scientists to try and replace the genes that do not function normally. | 
