Stem Cell Transplant Patient HIV free

Stem Cell Transplant Patient HIV free

www.advocate.com

A 42-year-old HIV patient with leukemia continues to show no signs of HIV in his blood, two years after a stem cell transplant from a donor with a gene mutation that confers natural resistance to the virus that causes AIDS.

(visit the link for the full news article)

As science and medicine advance they render former assumptions about incurability null and void.

A stem cell transplant patient has been cured of HIV (AKA they haven't shown signs of the virus for two years, which basically means they're cured.)

The treatment involved conferring immunity of T cells via stem cell transplant. I guess Jehovah's Witnesses won't be signing up for treatment!

Unfortunately, since you have to have compatible tissues this means only a small segment of the population will be helped by this- but in the near future further advances should make it easier to confer immunity; probably by manipulating genetic coding in the stem cells and cloning them.



www.advocate.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 4-4-2010 by hautmess]

Thanks for this, but please be advised that HIV and AIDS are two separate things.

I always knew there was a way to cute those things but my medical knowledge isn't good enough to actually put down my thoughts to test! xD

Originally posted by TheBloodRed
Thanks for this, but please be advised that HIV and AIDS are two separate things.

sorry the video i received the news from does title it as AIDS but the source says HIV

This is fantastic news! Looks like another success for adult stem cell research. Here's an earlier article on this case.

A Doctor, a Mutation and a Potential Cure for AIDS

Finally, he recommended standard second-line treatment: a bone marrow transplant -- but from a donor who had inherited the CCR5 mutation from both parents. Bone marrow is where immune-system cells are generated, so transplanting mutant bone-marrow cells would render the patient immune to HIV into perpetuity, at least in theory.

There were a total of 80 compatible blood donors living in Germany. Luckily, on the 61st sample he tested, Dr. Hütter's colleague Daniel Nowak found one with the mutation from both parents.

To prepare for the transplant, Dr. Hütter first administered a standard regimen of powerful drugs and radiation to kill the patient's own bone marrow cells and many immune-system cells. This procedure, lethal to many cells that harbor HIV, may have helped the treatment succeed.

The transplant specialists ordered the patient to stop taking his AIDS drugs when they transfused the donor cells, because they feared the powerful drugs might undermine the cells' ability to survive in their new host. They planned to resume the drugs once HIV re-emerged in the blood.

But it never did. Nearly two years later, standard tests haven't detected virus in his blood, or in the brain and rectal tissues where it often hides.

reply to post by hautmess


Dear hautmess

Thanks for posting the video.

The guy there has it wrong though as he talks of a cure for AIDS.

He should be saying a cure for HIV and this is not just nit picking because it leads to a lot of confusion.

However to me it really is looking like the way to go. Perhaps the only way. The problem with finding a cure for HIV all along is the fact that the HIV virus keeps mutating and this treatment is hitting the origin.

So keep your eye on this one a cure from descendents of survivors of the Black Death.