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posted by takyon on Wednesday March 06 2019, @09:24PM   Printer-friendly

For just the second time since the global epidemic began, a patient appears to have been cured of infection with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS.

The news comes nearly 12 years to the day after the first patient known to be cured, a feat that researchers have long tried, and failed, to duplicate. The surprise success now confirms that a cure for H.I.V. infection is possible, if difficult, researchers said.

The investigators are to publish their report on Tuesday in the journal Nature and to present some of the details at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Seattle.

Publicly, the scientists are describing the case as a long-term remission. In interviews, most experts are calling it a cure, with the caveat that it is hard to know how to define the word when there are only two known instances.

Both milestones resulted from bone-marrow transplants given to infected patients. But the transplants were intended to treat cancer in the patients, not H.I.V. Bone-marrow transplantation is unlikely to be a realistic treatment option in the near future. Powerful drugs are now available to control H.I.V. infection, while the transplants are risky, with harsh side effects that can last for years. But rearming the body with immune cells similarly modified to resist H.I.V. might well succeed as a practical treatment, experts said.

HIV-1 remission following CCR5Δ32/Δ32 haematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1027-4) (DX)


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @02:07AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @02:07AM (#810975)

    In both cases of a "cure," the standard bone marrow donation protocols were followed, since the risk to the patient wasn't that much higher than their advanced AIDS. In addition, the donors were from a population of people who seem naturally immune to HIV, for some reason. Therefore, once the immune system from the grafts got established, it was able to fight off the HIV in the body. The problem with this cure protocol is that, theoretically speaking, the risk of GVHD is much higher due to the transplant specifics; however there are no actual studies of that, of course.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @04:41PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @04:41PM (#811186)

    a population of people who seem naturally immune to HIV, for some reason

    The mutated form of CCR5, which is a co-receptor that HIV uses to enter cells, is thought to have increased in frequency due to selective pressure from a combination of smallpox and the Black Death plague.

    As for the problems of GVHD, there are multiple clinical trials that are in progress where bone marrow is taken from the patient, genetically modified to remove or suppress CCR5, then re-introduced into the patient.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCR5#Positive_selection [wikipedia.org]
    https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?cond=HIV+AIDS&term=+CCR5+gene+therapy&cntry=&state=&city=&dist= [clinicaltrials.gov]