HIV patient cured claims German doctors

[spinnerholic]

http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre...ds-transplant/

[Sonny]

Thanks Spinner, thats an interesting article.

the following article in the NEJM that more details

Long-Term Control of HIV by CCR5 Delta32/Delta32 Stem-Cell ...
by G Hütter - 2009 - Cited by 75 - Related articles

Original Article from The New England Journal of Medicine — Long-Term Control of HIV by CCR5 Delta32/Delta32 Stem-Cell Transplantation. www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0802905

[jason]

This is a good example of sensationalist headlines.

The guy was cured on accident by a bone marrow transplant. He had leukemia and his bone marrow donor happened to be part of a very small group of people who are basically immune to AIDS. After the transplant they realized his AIDS was gone too. It was the adult stem cells in the bone marrow that cured him. This is something akin to a one-in-a-million shot in the dark. Also the guy had a 50% chance of dying from the procedure itself. It's hardly a "cure".

[Potemkin]

Of course it probably won't work for anyone else.

[Kassy]

Originally Posted by Potemkin

Of course it probably won't work for anyone else.

It's only beneficial when you already need the transplant, when you have leukemia. I don't know what it would cost to screen for proper donors in the cases when people have this rather rare combination but it should be the obvious way to go.

[sandyd]

Someday they may be able to isolate the part that creates HIV immunity and just splice that in!