Scientists Report a Second Person Has Been Cured of HIV (reuters.com) 139
Scientists have reported that an HIV-positive man in Britain has been cleared of the AIDS virus after he received a bone marrow transplant from an HIV resistant donor. This is the second known adult worldwide to be cleared of HIV; the first was an American man, Timothy Brown, who became known as the Berlin patient when he underwent similar treatment in Germany more than a decade ago. According to HIV experts, Brown is still HIV-free. Reuters reports: Almost three years after receiving bone marrow stem cells from a donor with a rare genetic mutation that resists HIV infection - and more than 18 months after coming off antiretroviral drugs - highly sensitive tests still show no trace of the man's previous HIV infection. The case is a proof of the concept that scientists will one day be able to end AIDS, the doctors said, but does not mean a cure for HIV has been found. The man is being called "the London patient," in part because his case is similar to the first known case of a functional cure of HIV.
"There is no virus there that we can measure. We can't detect anything," said Ravindra Gupta, a professor and HIV biologist who co-led a team of doctors treating the man. Gupta described his patient as "functionally cured" and "in remission," but cautioned: "It's too early to say he's cured." Gupta, now at Cambridge University, treated the London patient when he was working at University College London. The man had contracted HIV in 2003, Gupta said, and in 2012 was also diagnosed with a type of blood cancer called Hodgkin's Lymphoma. In 2016, when he was very sick with cancer, doctors decided to seek a transplant match for him. "This was really his last chance of survival," Gupta told Reuters in an interview. The donor -- who was unrelated -- had a genetic mutation known as "CCR5 delta 32," which confers resistance to HIV. The transplant went relatively smoothly, Gupta said, but there were some side effects, including the patient suffering a period of "graft-versus-host" disease - a condition in which donor immune cells attack the recipient's immune cells.
"There is no virus there that we can measure. We can't detect anything," said Ravindra Gupta, a professor and HIV biologist who co-led a team of doctors treating the man. Gupta described his patient as "functionally cured" and "in remission," but cautioned: "It's too early to say he's cured." Gupta, now at Cambridge University, treated the London patient when he was working at University College London. The man had contracted HIV in 2003, Gupta said, and in 2012 was also diagnosed with a type of blood cancer called Hodgkin's Lymphoma. In 2016, when he was very sick with cancer, doctors decided to seek a transplant match for him. "This was really his last chance of survival," Gupta told Reuters in an interview. The donor -- who was unrelated -- had a genetic mutation known as "CCR5 delta 32," which confers resistance to HIV. The transplant went relatively smoothly, Gupta said, but there were some side effects, including the patient suffering a period of "graft-versus-host" disease - a condition in which donor immune cells attack the recipient's immune cells.
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Increased likelihood of a future symptomatic condition is a negative effect.
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Well, in that case, everyone who ever had chicken pox as a child is still technically "infected with a disease" (Herpes Zoster).
Yes, yes they are, we get tons of commercials where I live about Shingles that say as much.
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Unfortunately bone marrow transplant isn't a very viable treatment, because the mortality rate is fairly high and in general it's probably better to just take the existing treatments for HIV. But it provides a hint as to how a future cure may be developed.
Some kind of gene therapy may be feasible once the exact mechanism by which this worked is fully understood.
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The big reason bone marrow transplants are dangerous is because you have to give the patient what is effectively a lethal dose of chemo or radiation to kill off their existing immune system. I expect the next few years will bring a cure for HIV infection that involves selectively killing off T cells with antibody therapy, then reconstituting the immune system with autologous stem cells engineered to be HIV resistant.
Immune targeted antibody therapies are already approved for multiple sclerosis and a few oth
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Me too. Are you heterozygous or homozygous ( yeah be prepared for beavis and butthead jokes ) ? I met someone doing genetic research on HIV and mentioned this, and he was fascinated, because I was the only person he had met who knowingly had this mutation. It still doesn't get me to the head of the line in getting $$ for marrow transplants though. There is not organized system for handling this. Yes, I would want money for my pain and suffering. Call me selfish if you want but people with other mutations ge
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According to genotyping results, I have the HIV resistance mutation that makes this cure possible.
Quick lads- let's get him and harvest his marrow!
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According to genotyping results, I have the HIV resistance mutation that makes this cure possible.
Quick lads- let's get him and harvest his marrow!
Then again, his social options have just expanded! I really am going to go to hell........
HIV != AIDS (Score:5, Interesting)
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Neither the summary nor article says anyone was cured of AIDS.
It says he "has been cleared of the AIDS virus." HIV is definitely the AIDS virus. The article and summary are accurate.
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You don't have AIDS anymore if you've been cleared of HIV...
AIDS is a condition caused by HIV. HIV kills the immune system, even if it's cleared out, you will still have AIDS if you have no functional immune system. But it might not be contagious.
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That's not really true. A cold is a disease, caused by a virus. AIDS is syndrome, not a disease. HIV disables your immune system, then various opportunistic infections all try to be the first to kill you. The latter is AIDS.
Clearing HIV is relatively simple compared to curing all the various infections an AIDS patient might have, never mind fixing all the damage they've done.
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If you get rid of the HIV, their immune system will recover and kill the other infections. They may well have lasting effects from their time with AIDS.
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Sadly, that's not usually way it works. Your immune system is much more successful at eliminating (or containing) infections that are not well established.
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Slashdot. How far you've fallen.
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Magic Johnson (no pun intended) has been living with HIV since the early 90s.
Because he's filthy rich, and direct injections of liquified cash cured him.
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If you want to be a stickler, it also means "we injected this non-resistant supject with the same strain and he got AIDS". You first...
Puts the early claims into perspective (Score:3, Interesting)
Around 1990 we had claims of a "cure in 5...10 years" by actual experts. Now, 30 years later, we actually have an experimental cure that worked two times and both times it was a purely accidental side-effect of a very risky cancer treatment. Hence we still do not have a cure that is worth the risks. Human hubris at work.
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Still, we have gone a long way since the "90's, with patients being able to live (almost) normal lives. The understanding of the HIV virus has also improved considerably since that time.
I don't dispute that at all. And this research is hugely valuable for all the things it tells us. I was just commenting about all these "in 5...10 years" prediction and using this one here to make a point.
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Whether you can call it hubris or not is debatable. Back in the 90s, the human genome mapping project was just getting going and the understanding of the genetics of HIV was sadly lacking. The researchers said 5 to 10 years because their experience was with vaccines for high speed diseases that overwhelmed the immune system, not something that ran slow and shut down the immune system response.
When they finally dug their collective heads out of the sand and recognized it as a human threat, not a gay or drug
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I agree to most of what you say.
Medicine is still a lot of brute force over ignorance, though we'd rather not admit it.
And that not admitting it part is what I call hubris. I do agree that this is a personal opinion and that you can very well have a valid different opinion.
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It is much more profitable to give patients lifetime treatments that repress the virus but do not cure the infection completely.
This is where competition comes in. If you come late to that market, you don't have the best antivirus drugs. The very best are probably patented, so you can't even make them. Perhaps licence them, but then you just make money for someone else whose brand is much better known anyway.
So you can't profit form anti-HIV drugs. You can research a cure though. The medical profession as a whole may profit less when you succeed, but you will profit more. You patent this new cure, and make money til the patent runs
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The issue here is that there may not be enough economic incentive to search for a cure.
It is much more profitable to give patients lifetime treatments that repress the virus but do not cure the infection completely.
That may be true from a pharmaceutical-only standpoint- but governments have poured many millions of dollars into HIV research too! Imagine if all major life-threatening diseases got the same treatment as AIDs!
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Interestingly, the cure for type one diabetes, at least autoimmune types, is likely to be related to the cure for HIV infection.
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Unless you're the other company that isn't profiting from that treatment.
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Historically(if Wikipedia is to be believed)
HIV started out being studied in USA the 80s because patents where showing signs of both Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia(rare) and skin cancer called Kaposi's sarcoma(also rare). Each escalation of the study went from one thing to another, where the abbreviation even changed from GRID(Gay Related Immune Decency) to 4H(homosexuals, heroin users, hemophiliacs, and Haitians.) to AIDS once the cause and effect was studied enough to study the 'healthy population'.
I th
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Then why post as AC?
And write one line? It bothers me a lot
Because you don't contribute now, you are just sniding without producing effect or visibility.
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ACs that actually contribute anything worthwhile exist, but they are exceptionally rare. I wish /. has a "don't show me any AC postings" setting.
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"Cured" and "can be successfully managed long-term" are very different things. Seriously.
Hodgkin's Lymphoma is not "Blood Cancer" (Score:5, Informative)
Hodgkins is a cancer in the immune/lymph system, which is a whole separate plumbing system to the blood stream. If it was in the blood stream it would be leukemia.
(21 years cancer free now, yay).
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Hodgkins is a cancer in the immune/lymph system, which is a whole separate plumbing system to the blood stream. If it was in the blood stream it would be leukemia.
(21 years cancer free now, yay).
Congrats.
But damn, dude, you're using your second chance at life to be a grammar pedant to BeauHD.
Either aim higher, or do us all a favor and use actual explosive devices.
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Except white blood cells are indeed blood cells. Lymphoma is a blood cancer.
Lymphocytes are white blood cells. Leukemia translates to too many lymphocytes in the bloodstream and lymphoma translates to lymphocyte tumors. That means "leukemia" is too many white blood cells in the blood stream and "lymphoma" is white blood cell tumors.
So you are correct in saying that lymphomas are a cancer of the immune system, but incorrect in saying they're not blood cancers. They most definitely are. They are blood cell ca
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Just to expand and add a few points:
The first line of the Wikipedia entry for lymphoma: "Lymphoma is a group of blood cancers that develop from lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell)."
The immune system is not a "separate plumbing system to the blood stream." All blood cells, including red blood cells and white blood cells (WBCs), originate in the bone marrow and migrate out to the blood stream. The immune system is comprised of many layers, but white blood cells are what we most commonly refer to as the i
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That would indeed slow mutation and make it easier for the immune system to finish off. We'll have to wait and see.
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Like what, Polio?
Mona Lisa Overdrive (Score:1)
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Virtual Light, not Mona Lisa Overdrive.
Good news, but ... (Score:2)
But, even if that is true, this is a good great advancement.
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That's why it's important that the donor bone marrow has an anti-HIV mutation. You're correct that HIV is pretty good at hiding out, but it needs to reproduce in T cells. If you replace all the T cells with ones that HIV can't infect, it can't come back.
Better Idea. (Score:2)
Don't do stuff that gives you AIDS.
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You mean things like receive a blood transfusion?
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Yeah, because when I'm brought into the ER and I'm unconscious, I'm really going to do that.
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Uh... Blood banks already test for HIV
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How many times have we read this story? (Score:2)
Someone claims to have a cure to cancer or AIDS. Usually an overzealous reporter. Actual facts, it's some quirky edge case or someone looking for money.
I don't believe anyone has a cure to anything until they're selling the pill.
unfortunately... (Score:2)
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They haven't found a cure for the careless stupidity that lets people catch HIV in the first place. People that dumb are going to find a way to get themselves killed if they're that uncautious whether you cure their HIV or not.
You mean "careless stupidity" like my childhood friend who got it from a blood transfusion after a car accident in which he was a passenger? Worthless sacks of shit like you make me sick.
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Well, here is to hoping you get it from a blood transfusion or a contaminated instrument. Unlike you, most scientists do actually have ethical standards, not just irrational hate.
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I'm going to be the stereotype here - the only person I knew who had HIV/AIDS was my uncle's boyfriend, and he died from it back in the early '90s when it was still a death sentence. I think a lot of people have become more blase about HIV now that you can go on living for years by taking a cocktail of anti-retroviral drugs. Back then, once you got HIV you were pretty much dead.
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Well, the only thing you are demonstrating is that you are likely one of them and hate yourself for it. Basically only gays that are not at peace with what they are are violently and aggressively anti-gay.
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Yeah, he does not understand that gays are not the problem but the solution! ... and many are so damn hot! So I'm happy about every gay not restricting the pool to pick from any further :P
So many lesbian women out of reach, sigh
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Well, I would give you a "+1 Funny" for that if I could.
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And I thought it was "+1 Insightful" ... sigh.
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Funny enough, this attitude back in the 80s made the pandemic possible in the first place. Had we put a lid on it when it was still possible, AIDS would today be a problem of Africa, i.e. another one we ignore in the western world.
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Go and fuck a chick in Swaziland. Just don't do it in her ass and you should be all right.
Oh no! (Score:1)
HIV/AIDS is the cure for fags. Why are the scientists trying to undermine this. They are doing a great disservice to humanity is opening the gates of fag hell.
Dude, now when I'm in that threesome with the two hot babes, I won't have to worry too much if the bi-sexual girls did a bi-sexual guy and contracted HIV.
Let's face it, this is a real problem among us geeks: worrying about getting HIV from two hot babes we had sex with at the same time.
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And heterosexuals, people who may have been raped, children born from infected parent, people who have have a dirty needle (probably from drug use, but also from bad doctors), people who had a bad transfusion...
I know we want to think like our ancient ancestors did, seeing people with illnesses as being evil and less human. Combined with HIV most effective methods of spreading is due to taboo things just makes it seem like a punishment from God.
However if you are religious sort of person, you could also see
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Your comment is well on target. In Jesus' day, leprosy was the "punishment from God" disease.
WWJD? Heal the lepers.