Patient Cured of HIV

[LiquidFiction]

Check this out! guys

http://www.popsci.com/science/articl...ell-transplant

doctors treating an HIV-infected with leukemia believe they have, in a roundabout way, cured his HIV infection via a stem cell transplant containing cells that happened to be impervious to HIV infection.

[Stewie007]

There have been a lot of HIV related semi breakthroughs lately.

However, lets see if this holds up after a month. Sometimes, these breakthroughs turn out to be temporary. I believe this happened before where scientists believed they cured some folks of HIV, but it turned out that it didn't.

Lets hope this sticks.

[BiFfMaN]

Wait he had Leukemia and HIV.....and survived both. Is there nothing stem cells cannot do!

Next week they will find a way to keep rich people alive..forever!

[Stewie007]

I don't believe it said that he was cured of leukemia. Although, that is what it seems to imply....

I would hope so, because otherwise it would be "Yay, you aren't going to die from AIDS caused by HIV, you're now just going to die from leukemia."

[Glow9]

Wait he had Leukemia and HIV.....and survived both. Is there nothing stem cells cannot do!

Next week they will find a way to keep rich people alive..forever!

I watched my Mom die of Leukemia and I'm pretty f'ing skeptical of all this considering I've seen what one can do let alone a person having both... Seems like a PR ploy for stem cells more than anything. Maybe they'll figure out cold fusion next week.

[saaya]

if the cells are impervious to hiv, it means they wont get infected... but he already IS infected... so how does this cure him?

[LiquidFiction]

if the cells are impervious to hiv, it means they wont get infected... but he already IS infected... so how does this cure him?

A: Read the Article.
B: It ONLY has been 38 Months without a hint of HIV in the patient so i guess you may be right. Maybe it wasn't cured. HIV Just likes to wait 40 Months right? Because that is how Virus's Generally behave

[sjohnson]

The article is a bit misleading. Bone marrow in all of us contains stem cells. These stem cells divide and the daughter cells become the various blood cells in our bodies, including leukocytes (white blood cells). HIV primarily wreaks havoc by interfering with the function of our leukocytes, so by destroying the patients white blood cells and marrow stem cells and replacing them with donor marrow containing HIV-resistant stem cells and leukocytes, the HIV virus is unable to interfere with marrow stem cells and the resulting leukocyte function.

My guess is that the virus is then cleansed from the patient through normal immune response of the introduced leukocytes. Cure.

It's ironic that the patient will almost certainly be on immunosuppressive drugs the rest of his/her life so as to minimize organ (marrow) rejection.

[Cooper]

HIV is just an acronym. I think the list of diseases included in that category covers many widespreaded and curable illnesses too like pneumonia. Hey I had it twice and cured it both times. I defeated HIV !
Leukemia is a form of Cancer not HIV.

[sjohnson]

Partly right. HIV *is* an acronym, standing for Human immunodeficiency virus. It is not just an acronym, however. If infected with HIV, a person most often develops AIDS (another acronym), which stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. AIDS is a condition (not a disease in itself) in which the immune system begins to fail, leading to life-threatening opportunistic infections that would, in a healthy person, be defeated by the immune system (your "cure" of pneumonia was due to a functioning immune system. A person with AIDS doesn't HAVE a functioning immune system).

The main mechanism by which our immune system works is through the leukocytes. The HIV virus eventually cripples the effectiveness of the leukocytes, leaving the person unable to fend off even simple infections that most healthy people would never even notice.

That leukemia is not HIV is true, this patient acquired two diseases. The patient may have acquired leukemia due to HIV-induced AIDS or not, it doesn't matter. What matters is that one treatment of leukemia is the destruction of a patients bone marrow followed by replacement bone marrow from a donor. The leukemia cancer resides in bone marrow, if the cancerous marrow is eliminated and then replaced with functional marrow, the leukemia is cured.

In this case, it appears that the patient received donor marrow that is resistant to HIV. So, two cures were effected: cure of leukemia and cure of HIV/AIDS.

[zub]

let see what happen....

[the finisher]

Wait he had Leukemia and HIV.....and survived both. Is there nothing stem cells cannot do!

Next week they will find a way to keep rich people alive..forever!

Who the F would want to be here forever?

[Stewie007]

Leukemia is not something you "catch." It is a form of cancer, not viral disease. Mutations to the DNA cause the bone marrow to begin producing immature blood cells, and in turn cause damage to the bone marrow. It can affect your body's immune system, much like an auto-immune disease such as HIV. However, HIV is proficient enough on its own to do this without Leukemia's help. I think the real question is:

Did this guy actually have HIV? Or did Leukemia cause his immune system to mock HIV, and they are passing it off as news of HIV to get good press and maybe some endorsements?

HIV does not work by infecting anything other than your T-Cells. Your body continues to produce them, and HIV continues to infect and destroy them. Eventually, it will do enough damage to your immune system to cause the full blown Auto Immune condition called AIDS. If you can prevent the infection of future T-Cells, then HIV will effectively be stopped in its tracks. It isn't like other viruses that attack soft tissue and the brain. It attacks your immune system. If you do indeed successfully stop it from invading these cells (by changing the cell membrane configuration through artificial modification for example) then you can effectively starve the virus. In this case they are claiming that these Stem-Cells that helped create new bone-marrow that was viable also created T-Cells that were impervious to HIV.

All I can say is, we'll see. This isn't the first "breakthrough." I read about on in Scientific American that shows some promise. It isn't actually a "cure" yet, but it was a step in the right direction. For those who find Stem Cell Research repulsive, it also didn't involve that.

But again, we'll see......

[saaya]

a retro virus like hiv can stay dormant for decades afaik, so he isnt really cured of hiv, he probably still carries the virus, hes cured from AIDS though, at least so far...

its good news but i doubt this is actually practicable as a way to cure hiv or aids... it beats dieing from aids, but... yeah... its kinda like killing a mole by blowing up your backyard

[Stewie007]

Well, I don't know about the plural form of "decade" but it can be dormant for 10 years. However, you are mistaking dormant for inactive. During the dormancy phase of HIV, your body does produce anti-bodies, and the virus is replicating itself inside your body. So slapping on "dormancy" as an answer probably wouldn't quite do it, as it would show up in the blood stream, and so would other indicators.

The main reason I have my reservations on the subject is the incredible vagueness that begins after the "Cured HIV" part. Of course, it could also be the low quality writing like using and twice in one sentence without commas and completing thoughts preceding those "ands" much the way I would have done so in 6th grade and it is by no means reflective of the scientists' work and I hope it leads...................... er....

[sjohnson]

If you still have doubts, try reading the info at http://www.aidsmap.com/page/1577949/

[Stewie007]

That sounds like an awful process that he went through. But seriously... after all of that, Cigarettes? Seriously? Even though we're talking about a different type of cancer, I don't think I would want to push my luck after going through all of that.

Much more informative, thanks.

[zub]

i this really is a cure then surely it'd be front page stuff all round the world?

[Stewie007]

Well, its not really a cure. Its just that this happened to work for him. They probably cannot fully replicate the effect without taking the chance of killing the patient.

The mainstream media reports on stuff that is pretty cut and dry; this is not.

All of my skepticism aside, it does look like at least a step in the right direction.

[sjohnson]

What it does is to open the door to medical research that may (or may NOT) provide a more gentle, less risky way to combat HIV and AIDS.