Scientists at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and Temple University in Philadelphia eliminated the virus from a small number of mice.
"This is proof of concept that a cure of HIV is possible," said Dr. Howard Gendelman, chairman of UNMC's pharmacology and experimental neuroscience department. "We are at the cusp of a scientific revolution in human genomes that can change the course, quality and longevity of life."
Columnist Kristen Soltis Anderson on the expanded Washington Examiner magazine
In the study, researchers used two therapies: a formulation of HIV drugs to suppress the virus followed by a gene-editing therapy cutting HIV from their genomes.
"We're going at the root cause," Gendelman said. "We're going after the virus that's already integrated in the genome of the host cell."
No technology since the AIDS epidemic has ever fully eliminated HIV.
"Elimination of HIV-1 requires clearance and removal of integrated proviral DNA from infected cells and tissues," the study wrote, which was published Tuesday in Nature Communications.