Author Topic: A cure for AIDS!  (Read 2330 times)

andygates

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A cure for AIDS!
« on: 09 November, 2008, 05:26:12 pm »
A Doctor, a Mutation and a Potential Cure for AIDS - WSJ.com

It's a one-off right now: an HIV/leukaemia patient recieved a bone marrow transplant from a donor who was HIV-resistant (a rare but normal human mutation, 1% of white folks).  It looks as if the donor marrow produced HIV immune cells which nobbled the virus.

How sweet is that?

It opens the way for gene therapy or for, mmm, delicious bone marrow harvesting from compatible donors.  The article doesn't say whether the donor's name was J D Shapely or not.  *






* Virtual Light, William Gibson: The AIDS Saint.
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Re: A cure for AIDS!
« Reply #1 on: 10 November, 2008, 09:13:49 am »
Isn't it weird that some Northern Europeans have natural resistance to AIDS but almost all Africans where it originated don't. You would expect it to be the other way around. I wonder what the CCR5 mutation originally protected against ?
Potentially this is going to be huge.
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.

jellied

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Re: A cure for AIDS!
« Reply #2 on: 10 November, 2008, 09:24:46 am »
I've heard that the northern europe resistance might be due to HIV being related to the black death. the survivors of the BD therefore passed down some form of immunity to HIV.

This could of course be utter bollocks
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Charlotte

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Re: A cure for AIDS!
« Reply #3 on: 10 November, 2008, 09:26:16 am »
In fairness, though - I wonder if it's more to do with the massive dose of nasties that you have to take prior to a bone marrow transplant killing off the HIV as well as everything else that it nukes?

I wonder how many bone marrow recipients from donors who don't have the CCR5 mutation display a lack of virus cells in their blood?

Hell of a discovery though.  I hope it proves useful, because nobody else appears to be making any headway with HIV/AIDS research at the moment.
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Tiger

Re: A cure for AIDS!
« Reply #4 on: 12 November, 2008, 02:57:36 pm »
On the way in from Heathrow there used to be a big neon that said 'Lucozade - aids recovery'.  Americans were amazed.

Che

Re: A cure for AIDS!
« Reply #5 on: 12 November, 2008, 03:04:22 pm »
In fairness, though - I wonder if it's more to do with the massive dose of nasties that you have to take prior to a bone marrow transplant killing off the HIV as well as everything else that it nukes?

I suspect that if a single one of those drugs were capable of affecting viral load, it would have been noticed by now. I'm inclined to suspect that this is a real effect. Gosh.