It's very harmless. Obviously there's a good number more technical details in here, but the gist of it is we take the parts of the HIV virus that makes it so good at proliferating, take out the genetic material that makes it harmful to our cells, and put in our own genetic information for the HIV-derived virus to inject into our target cells (known as a viral vector).
Contrary to the mental connotation, it's a very harmless procedure that's often used even in BSL-2 labs. It's not to say that there aren't risks involved, but chances are you're not going to end up with AIDs.
HIV-derived lentiviruses have been in use for a long time now and are a proven research tool. Coincidentally I just grew and harvested a new batch of lentiviruses this past Tuesday to treat cancer cells with shRNA.
Contrary to the mental connotation, it's a very harmless procedure that's often used even in BSL-2 labs. It's not to say that there aren't risks involved, but chances are you're not going to end up with AIDs.
HIV-derived lentiviruses have been in use for a long time now and are a proven research tool. Coincidentally I just grew and harvested a new batch of lentiviruses this past Tuesday to treat cancer cells with shRNA.