Berlin | June 29

Deutsche Welle - German scientists have succeeded in snipping the virus that causes AIDS out of human cells, leaving them healthy again. The procedure is a breakthrough in bio-technology and fuels hope of a cure for AIDS.

The laboratory procedure removing the AIDS virus used an enzyme, said Joachim Hauber of the Heinrich Pette Institute for Experimental Virology and Immunology in Hamburg.

"We have rid the cells of the virus," Hauber said on Thursday. "No one else has done this before." He called it "a breakthrough in bio-technology."

Hauber said it was his "cautious" hope that a cure for AIDS could be found within 10 years.