Jake Liang, chief of the Liver Diseases Branch at NIH’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases near Washington, where the discovery was made, said that the hepatitis virus "continues to infect new cells as the infection goes on. So, our thought is, if we can prevent or destruct that reinfection process, the infected cells will die eventually, so you would not have any more infected cells.”Hepatitis C is spread through sexual contact or infected blood products. It can lead to liver failure, cancer, and cirrhosis or hardening of the liver.