ince the early 1980s, the HIV epidemic has been raging within the S 1 United States and around the world. Drug therapy for HIV infection has not been curative, prompting the search for alternative strategies to control HIV infection within infected persons. One potential alterna- tive to drug therapy is a developing medical technology termed gene therapy. 2 Gene therapy involves introducing genetic elements into popu- lations of cells in order to correct or prevent a pathologic process. A large number of gene therapy strategies have been developed in an at- tempt to inhibit HIV expression and...