SLICING one virus’s DNA in half vastly improves its ability to shuttle genes
into cells, researchers in North Carolina have discovered.
Adeno-associated virus (AAV) has fewer toxic effects than many other viruses,
and the genes it carries can remain active in cells for months or even years.
There’s just one problem. “For some applications it just isn’t fast enough,”
says Jude Samulski of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. It can take
weeks for the genes carried by AAV to be switched on in the target cells.
Samulski and his UNC colleague Doug McCarthy suspected AAV might be slow…
