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HIV patient possibly cured in Berlin.

edited December 2010 in Everything Else
So, I'm cross-posting this from TotD, because it's totally awesome.

This patient in Berlin had leukemia and HIV, which was treated with high-dose chemotherapy, which in turn almost entirely eradicated his white T4 cell count. In order to counter this, he was dosed with a large amount of immunosuppressants, received a stem cell injection, was dosed again with immunosuppressants 13 days later, and his leukemia was gone. So was his HIV.

Turns out his stem cell donor was a part of the 1% of the population inherently immune to HIV due to a lack of a certain cell receptor. Since the HIV could not replicate while immunosuppresants were in the bloodstream (the virus is only coded for during immune responses), and the patient's own T4 cells were more or less completely wiped out, none of his new immune cells could harbor the virus.

The guy went through hell and back, but he no longer has leukemia. Or, doctors think, HIV. This news is huge.

http://www.aidsmap.com/page/1577949/

Comments

  • We need to get on this, fast!

    I may be tempted to stay my course and get my Biology degree thanks to this.
  • That is freaking amazing. It is sad that a lot of Christians (unlike myself) will continue to argue against this because stem cells are "immoral."
    I mean, if we can just find people in the population that are resistant to HIV, get marrow transplants...There won't be enough for everyone initially, but eventually they'll start creating more blood cells that are immune to HIV, won't they? So, if enough people get transplants initially, we'll have a growing bank of HIV-immune people who can make even more transplants.
  • edited December 2010
    We need to get on this, fast!
    It's no walk in the park. You have to be dedicated to allow yourself to undergo leukemia so severe it destroys almost every white blood cell in your body and then go through two bone marrow transplants. You also need a donor of stem cells whose MHCCs match yours.

    Now, SCNT could fix the MHCC issue. But HIV still won't be like the clap. You won't be able to take a pill and have that shit clear up.
    It is sad that a lot of Christians (unlike myself) will continue to argue against this because stem cells are "immoral."
    No, they won't. Read about induced pluripotent adult stem cells.
    Post edited by WindUpBird on
  • It is sad that a lot of Christians (unlike myself) will continue to argue against this because stem cells are "immoral."
    No, they won't. Read about induced pluripotent adult stem cells.
    Ohoh, right, adult stem cells...Very nice.
  • An adult is just a 20 year old fetus. I still say they will object.
  • More proof for my argument that stem cells are magic.
  • I hate to always be Captain Bringdown regarding science issues, but while this is a really cool emergence, it's not in any way a practical therapy for HIV nor does it seem to present any clear avenue to creating one. It involved a major, traumatic course of cancer treatment followed by a difficult transplant.
  • I hate to always be Captain Bringdown regarding science issues, but while this is a really cool emergence, it's not in any way a practical therapy for HIV nor does it seem to present any clear avenue to creating one. It involved a major, traumatic course of cancer treatment followed by a difficult transplant.
    No one is saying that we have found the cure for HIV, we're just celebrating science actually making a big step forward.
  • Ohoh, right, adult stem cells...Very nice.
    The thing is, adult stem cells (Derived from Somatic Cells) are not very nice. They have this nasty tendency to make tumors and tumors and TUMORS. Yuck! But maybe someday soon they will be more nice.
  • edited December 2010
    DEEEERRRRRRP.

    Need to review stems. This is not my field.
    Post edited by WindUpBird on
  • edited December 2010
    The major concern with the potential clinical application of iPSCs is their propensity to form tumors. Much the same as ESC, iPSCs readily form teratoma when injected into immunodeficient mice. Teratoma formation is considered a major obstacle to stem-cell based regenerative medicine by the FDA.
    I checked on Wikipedia. I remember Rym talking about this because we were going on a tangent about how solving cancer and aging are actually very closely linked.

    Oh sorries, you edited.
    Post edited by gomidog on
  • This is very exciting and I look forward to reading more about it in the future once more research has been done.
  • edited December 2010
    whoops, wrong thread. That's what I get for opening multiple tabs at once.
    Post edited by Lanlost on
  • It's okay, nooblet, you'll get into the swing of things.
  • edited December 2010
    Times like these, I miss Nine...

    ...
    Post edited by WindUpBird on
  • You are playing with dark forces my friend.
  • Times like these, I miss Nine...
    ...Why? You enjoy our tiny newblets being frightened out of their minds?
  • I hate to always be Captain Bringdown regarding science issues, but while this is a really cool emergence, it's not in any way a practical therapy for HIV nor does it seem to present any clear avenue to creating one. It involved a major, traumatic course of cancer treatment followed by a difficult transplant.
    Balderdash is right, while this is an interesting finding this is pretty useless in terms of treating HIV. To start off this guy is still immunocompromised from all the drugs he needs to prevent rejection and Graft-versus-host disease. If he develops Graft-versus-host disease then he'll need even more drugs and will remain immunocompromised.

    Also, HIV uses more than one receptor. They can be CXCR4 or CCR5 tropic and there is also evidence that suggests a very small portion of infection occurs without either receptor (though it is very inefficient). This means that this patient can be reinfected by a virus with a different tropism. This treatment also doesn't address the latent virus that all HIV infected individuals have. Just because the latent cells haven't experienced the proper trigger does not mean they will not produce HIV at a later point in time. And if they did then they could just switch to the CXCR4 tropism.

    It'd be interesting to see if they've tried to reactivate cells from a sample instead of just sorting for receptors as a measure of infection. I need to go hunt down the paper and read it because I'd like to know what they looked for in the brain tissue as well, as it isn't uncommon to see neurological side effects with HIV infection.
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