AIDS Cure ?

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Byrdie714

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Doctors say marrow transplant may have cured AIDS

BERLIN – An American man who suffered from AIDS appears to have been cured of the disease 20 months after receiving a targeted bone marrow transplant normally used to fight leukemia, his doctors said.

While researchers — and the doctors themselves — caution that the case might be no more than a fluke, others say it may inspire a greater interest in gene therapy to fight the disease that claims 2 million lives each year. The virus has infected 33 million people worldwide.

Dr. Gero Huetter said Wedneday his 42-year-old patient, an American living in Berlin who was not identified, had been infected with the AIDS virus for more than a decade. But 20 months after undergoing a transplant of genetically selected bone marrow, he no longer shows signs of carrying the virus.

"We waited every day for a bad reading," Huetter said.

It has not come. Researchers at Berlin's Charite hospital and medical school say tests on his bone marrow, blood and other organ tissues have all been clean.

However, Dr. Andrew Badley, director of the HIV and immunology research lab at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., said those tests have probably not been extensive enough.

"A lot more scrutiny from a lot of different biological samples would be required to say it's not present," Badley said.

This isn't the first time marrow transplants have been attempted for treating AIDS or HIV infection. In 1999, an article in the journal Medical Hypotheses reviewed the results of 32 attempts reported between 1982 and 1996. In two cases, HIV was apparently eradicated, the review reported.

Huetter's patient was under treatment at Charite for both AIDS and leukemia, which developed unrelated to HIV.

As Huetter — who is a hematologist, not an HIV specialist — prepared to treat the patient's leukemia with a bone marrow transplant, he recalled that some people carry a genetic mutation that seems to make them resistant to HIV infection. If the mutation, called Delta 32, is inherited from both parents, it prevents HIV from attaching itself to cells by blocking CCR5, a receptor that acts as a kind of gateway.

"I read it in 1996, coincidentally," Huetter told reporters at the medical school. "I remembered it and thought it might work."

Roughly one in 1,000 Europeans and Americans have inherited the mutation from both parents, and Huetter set out to find one such person among donors that matched the patient's marrow type. Out of a pool of 80 suitable donors, the 61st person tested carried the proper mutation.

Before the transplant, the patient endured powerful drugs and radiation to kill off his own infected bone marrow cells and disable his immune system — a treatment fatal to between 20 and 30 percent of recipients.

He was also taken off the potent drugs used to treat his AIDS. Huetter's team feared that the drugs might interfere with the new marrow cells' survival. They risked lowering his defenses in the hopes that the new, mutated cells would reject the virus on their own.

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases in the U.S., said the procedure was too costly and too dangerous to employ as a firstline cure. But he said it could inspire researchers to pursue gene therapy as a means to block or suppress HIV.

"It helps prove the concept that if somehow you can block the expression of CCR5, maybe by gene therapy, you might be able to inhibit the ability of the virus to replicate," Fauci said.

David Roth, a professor of epidemiology and international public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said gene therapy as cheap and effective as current drug treatments is in very early stages of development.

"That's a long way down the line because there may be other negative things that go with that mutation that we don't know about."

Even for the patient in Berlin, the lack of a clear understanding of exactly why his AIDS has disappeared means his future is far from certain.

"The virus is wily," Huetter said. "There could always be a resurgence."

(This version CORRECTS spelling of doctor's name to Huetter throughout.)
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Doctors say marrow transplant may have cured AIDS - Yahoo! News
 
Well, that's news to me! It might be something that's too good to be true and it might be something worthwhile for further research. It's a glimmer of hope. There's been a lot of those kinds of stories (cure for the HIV disease) that it's easier for me to be dubious.
 
This is very interesting. I'm looking forward to the findings of further research.
 
This is very interesting.

This may be the start of something to get the ball rolling. With the extended research on this - It still has a long way to go but nevertheless, this is a significant point to throw out all those possibilities that are out there.
 
Byrdie714 said:
I'm curious about it. Whaat I wonder is why the American went to Berlin for medical care???

Anyway it'll be interesting to see more research on it.
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maybe it's not approved by FDA in America?? :dunno2:
 
Yea, that is really interesting. It may have been found by accident that it cured AIDS virus, but we'll see about that.

Did you know that choroline (sp) is known to destroy AIDS virus, but the bad thing you can't have that in your own body and it'll kill you.
 
sequoias said:
Yea, that is really interesting. It may have been found by accident that it cured AIDS virus, but we'll see about that.

Did you know that choroline (sp) is known to destroy AIDS virus, but the bad thing you can't have that in your own body and it'll kill you.
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Chlorine is found in bleach. Yeah, it will kill ya.


I have heard of Delta 32 but it didn't occurred to me that a bone marrow transplant from a donor with Delta 32 might work in a patient with HIV. Cool!
 
Buffalo said:
Chlorine is found in bleach. Yeah, it will kill ya.


I have heard of Delta 32 but it didn't occurred to me that a bone marrow transplant from a donor with Delta 32 might work in a patient with HIV. Cool!
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Delta 32? Care to explain what it is?
 
sequoias said:
Delta 32? Care to explain what it is?
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I learned of it from the tv program "Secrets of the Dead" on Black Death in Middle Ages. It is a gene mutation. If you get double gene mutation (one from your dad and one from your mom) you will not get HIV/AIDS or Black Death. In Middle Ages, there are some people who survived the Black Death (like only one that lived while everbody in the family died). A gay man didn't get HIV eventhough his lover died from it. He decided to find out why and found a doctor who tested his blood. That is how they found out about Delta 32. It change the "gate" so the HIV bug can't enter.

More on this: SECRETS OF THE DEAD . Mystery of the Black Death . Interview | PBS
 
Buffalo said:
I learned of it from the tv program "Secrets of the Dead" on Black Death in Middle Ages. It is a gene mutation. If you get double gene mutation (one from your dad and one from your mom) you will not get HIV/AIDS or Black Death. In Middle Ages, there are some people who survived the Black Death (like only one that lived while everbody in the family died). A gay man didn't get HIV eventhough his lover died from it. He decided to find out why and found a doctor who tested his blood. That is how they found out about Delta 32. It change the "gate" so the HIV bug can't enter.

More on this: SECRETS OF THE DEAD . Mystery of the Black Death . Interview | PBS
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wow, I heard it differently but that's the same thing you told me. I knew there are a few people in the world that are immune to certain type of viruses which they cannot get it at all.

Thanks for explaining about what it is! :)
 
sequoias said:
wow, I heard it differently but that's the same thing you told me. I knew there are a few people in the world that are immune to certain type of viruses which they cannot get it at all.

Thanks for explaining about what it is! :)
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What did you hear? I am just curious.
 
Yes, I saw on TV at 2 days ago. It's very interesting... They are going to working on their further focus...
 
Suddenly, everyone is gonna want a bone marrow transplant. :eek:
 
Byrdie714 said:
Hopefully they'll find something...
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Yeah! It's interesting link. Thank you for show a link. I hope for AIDS cures! I believe Obama is support Aids cure because of his dad's country in Africa. The America need to get an AIDS cures for patients.
 
They were using bone marrow from donors that have certain genes (mutation), I believe. If that dude got cured of AIDS, it's possible anything might've helped make it happen. Preexisting conditions and genes with extra helpings from a donated bone marrow with special stuff may have made the cure possible. I'm waiting and seeing to see the effects of a mainstream application of this cure. :)
 
Byrdie714 said:
Hopefully they'll find something...



I'm curious about it. Whaat I wonder is why the American went to Berlin for medical care???

Anyway it'll be interesting to see more research on it.
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Perhaps because it is considered an experimental treatment not available here.
 
But, the problem here is if they did find a cure, that'd cause everyone to let their guards down and go have unprotected sex.
 
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