AIDS Cure? "First HIV-Positive Man Cured"

[Tanasinn]

This doesn't seem to be getting much play for whatever reason, but if it turns out that the data supports the claims of the article's title, then it should be rather important news. With the way scientific discoveries are misrepresented in the mass media and my own feeble understanding of medical science, I'm not getting too excited yet.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40662122

KHQ.COM - On the heels of World AIDS Day comes a stunning medical breakthrough: Doctors believe an HIV-positive man who underwent a stem cell transplant has been cured as a result of the procedure.

Timothy Ray Brown, also known as the "Berlin Patient," received the transplant in 2007 as part of a lengthy treatment course for leukaemia. His doctors recently published a report in the journal Blood affirming that the results of extensive testing " strongly suggest that cure of HIV infection has been achieved."

While Brown is the first person to ever be declared cured of HIV, his case paves a path for constructing a cure for HIV through genetically-engineered stem cells.

Last week, Time named another AIDS-related discovery to its list of the Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs of 2010. Recent studies show that healthy individuals who take antiretrovirals, medicine commonly prescribed for treating HIV, can reduce their risk of contracting the disease by up to 73 percent.

While these developments by no means prove a cure for the virus has been found, they can certainly provide hope for the more than 33 million people living with HIV worldwide. Alongside such findings, global efforts to combat the epidemic have accelerated as of late, with new initiatives emerging in the Philippines and South Africa this week.

[General Zod]

A one-off medical phenomenon isn't all that big of a deal even if it is impressive. It'll be a lot more newsworthy when scientists can replicate it in the lab.

[Molyneux]

It may point the way towards more effective treatment for HIV - but I'm trying not to get worked up over it until there's more information.

[Alyrium Denryle]

It may point the way towards more effective treatment for HIV - but I'm trying not to get worked up over it until there's more information.

Well, what happened in this case is that the donor was a man who possessed two copies f the CCR5 mutation that grants HIV immunity. Normally, an AIDS patient is not IIRC a candidate for a marrow transplant, however in this case, it was explicitly an experimental attempt to use the resultant CCR5 mutation to cure HIV.

It worked.

[Phantasee]

So we just need to dissect this immune guy and clone the cells we need, and give bone marrow transplants to all the people with HIV?

Oh man I just remembered the problems with matching bone marrow donors.

[mr friendly guy]

Ok I am sure this has been posted before. Basically HIV requires both the CCR5 and CD 4 co-receptors to enter a cell. Now just like humans are not the same, not all HIV are the same, and some genotypes do have this limitation. So while having this may make you immune to one genotype, it won't to another (its been a long time since I had this lecture). And before someone says let work out how he is immune and use it to make drugs, we are already doing that.

The CCR5 antagonists are called Maraviroc and Vicriviroc. Look them up on wiki.

[Molyneux]

Ok I am sure this has been posted before. Basically HIV requires both the CCR5 and CD 4 co-receptors to enter a cell. Now just like humans are not the same, not all HIV are the same, and some genotypes do have this limitation. So while having this may make you immune to one genotype, it won't to another (its been a long time since I had this lecture). And before someone says let work out how he is immune and use it to make drugs, we are already doing that.

The CCR5 antagonists are called Maraviroc and Vicriviroc. Look them up on wiki.

Thank you for the details.

What pisses me off about HIV is that it should be comically easy to kill off. Honestly. It can't spread through air, it dies quickly outside of the body, and its best vector of transmission can be significantly hindered with nothing more than a condom - the fact that it is still spreading is a heavy vote against the idea of humans being an intelligent species.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Ok I am sure this has been posted before. Basically HIV requires both the CCR5 and CD 4 co-receptors to enter a cell. Now just like humans are not the same, not all HIV are the same, and some genotypes do have this limitation. So while having this may make you immune to one genotype, it won't to another (its been a long time since I had this lecture). And before someone says let work out how he is immune and use it to make drugs, we are already doing that.

The CCR5 antagonists are called Maraviroc and Vicriviroc. Look them up on wiki.

Thank you for the details.

What pisses me off about HIV is that it should be comically easy to kill off. Honestly. It can't spread through air, it dies quickly outside of the body, and its best vector of transmission can be significantly hindered with nothing more than a condom - the fact that it is still spreading is a heavy vote against the idea of humans being an intelligent species.

That is why STIs are so insidious... and awesome. They are the dirty trick of evolution (that nasty bitch). Taking advantage of the very thing human beings are most fucking stupid with regard to. Sex. Hell, HIV even uses its own low transmission rate as an advantage...

[Skgoa]

Hell, HIV even uses its own low transmission rate as an advantage...

How?

[PeZook]

Heh...it's interesting that the thing has been played up so much over the years due to how horrible and insidious it is that getting funding towards anti-HIV research isn't a problem to anybody with even a mildly crazy idea. Which means we'll get a lot of medical advances out of it, much more than if it just died out via simple prevention.

Ain't the world horrible? Nobody would give a fuck about funding experimental antiviral drugs if it wasn't for HIV, and even if someone did, doing clinical tests would be much more difficult without desperate HIV patients willing to try anything at all to live just a while longer.

Amusingly enough, results of HIV research may give us the knowledge needed to destroy so many other less medial yet still very dangerous viruses, rather than just treating the symptoms and trying to vaccinate enough people to give us herd immunity.

What pisses me off about HIV is that it should be comically easy to kill off. Honestly. It can't spread through air, it dies quickly outside of the body, and its best vector of transmission can be significantly hindered with nothing more than a condom - the fact that it is still spreading is a heavy vote against the idea of humans being an intelligent species.

There's a lot of other diseases that are like that. Polio should be dead. Tuberculosis should be dead. Hell, mumps, rubella? Should, by all means, be eradicated by now.

But idiots scream and shout and holler and kick and sabotage all efforts to make life better for everyone, or are just negligent and stupid (Oh my dad got the flu after getting vaccinated, therefore vaccines don't work)

[Alyrium Denryle]

Hell, HIV even uses its own low transmission rate as an advantage...

How?

The per-encounter probability of infection is low enough that people rationalize or disregard the risk, thus ensuring the spread of the disease.

[Todeswind]

Hell, HIV even uses its own low transmission rate as an advantage...

How?

The per-encounter probability of infection is low enough that people rationalize or disregard the risk, thus ensuring the spread of the disease.

What he's trying to say is that it is designed to be hard to map back to a single carrier. If every partner person A sleeps with gets HIV then the decision not to procreate is simple. If there is a lower rate of transmission carriers are less likely to notice that they are carriers and more likely to take the risk if they do notice.