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HIV FREE after stem cell transplant - for 3 years
Release date: 2/27/2010
42-year-old HIV/Leukemia patient has no detectable HIV after a Repair Stem Cell transplant.
“A 42-year-old HIV patient with leukemia appears to have no detectable HIV in his blood and no symptoms after a stem cell transplant from a donor carrying a gene mutation that confers natural resistance to the virus that causes AIDS, according to a report published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.”
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED?
The startling case of an AIDS patient who underwent a bone marrow transplant to treat leukemia is stirring new hope that gene-therapy strategies on the far edges of AIDS research might someday cure the disease.
The patient, a 42-year-old American living in Berlin, is still recovering from his leukemia therapy, but he appears to have won his battle with AIDS. Doctors have not been able to detect the virus in his blood for more than 600 days, despite his having ceased all conventional AIDS medication. Normally when a patient stops taking AIDS drugs, the virus stampedes through the body within weeks, or days.
Dr. Gero Hütter isn’t an AIDS specialist, but he ‘functionally cured’ a patient, who shows no sign of the disease.
“I was very surprised,” said the doctor, Gero Hütter.
The breakthrough appears to be that Dr. Hütter, a soft-spoken hematologist who isn’t an AIDS specialist, deliberately replaced the patient’s bone marrow cells with those from a donor who has a naturally occurring genetic mutation that renders his cells immune to almost all strains of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
FANTASTIC! BUT WHILE THIS IS GREAT NEWS, IT IS NOT “NEW” NEWS…
Why does this sound familiar?
- The original article that got almost no coverage is from Wall Street Journal – Nov 2008 – http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122602394113507555.html?mod=googlenews_wsj#articleTabs%3Darticle
- This article was then posted here in Feb 2009 – http://repairstemcell.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/stem-cells-hiv-part-2-a-doctor-a-mutation-and-a-potential-cure-for-aids-wsjcom/
- The abstract of the case was posted in the New England Journal of Medicine in Feb 2009 – See abstract below
SO WHY IS IT ONLY NOW GETTING PICKED UP BY THE MEDIA??
Good question….Perhaps because they have been ordered to not publish anything other than embryonic stem cell stories over the past 3 years or so? SCREW THE EMBRYOS, THEY’RE IRRELEVANT!
Some clarifications on the story:
- “Doctors have not been able to detect the virus in his blood for more than 600 days” takes us back to about Jan of 2007 so if he is still symptom free it is for over 3 years now.
- In this case, there were 80 compatible blood donors living in Germany and on the 61st sample tested, they found one with the “retrovirus resistant” mutation from both parents.
- I’ve been told the procedure cost about $150k.
ABSTRACT FROM NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE
Long-Term Control of HIV by CCR5 Delta32/Delta32 Stem-Cell
Transplantation
Gero Hütter, M.D., Daniel Nowak, M.D., Maximilian Mossner, B.S., Susanne Ganepola, M.D., Arne Müßig, M.D., Kristina Allers, Ph.D., Thomas Schneider, M.D., Ph.D., Jörg Hofmann, Ph.D., Claudia Kücherer, M.D., Olga Blau, M.D., Igor W. Blau, M.D., Wolf K. Hofmann, M.D., and Eckhard Thiel, M.D.
SUMMARY
Infection with the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) requires the presence of a CD4 receptor and a chemokine receptor, principally chemokine receptor 5 (CCR5). Homozygosity for a 32-bp deletion in the CCR5 allele provides resistance against HIV-1 acquisition. We transplanted stem cells from a donor who was homozygous for CCR5 delta32 in a patient with acute myeloid leukemia and HIV-1 infection. The patient remained without viral rebound 20 months after transplantation and discontinuation of antiretroviral therapy. This outcome demonstrates the critical role CCR5 plays in maintaining HIV-1 infection.
Source Information
From the Department of Hematology, Oncology, and Transfusion Medicine (G.H., D.N., M.M., S.G., A.M., O.B., I.W.B., W.K.H., E.T.) and the Department of Gastroenterology, Infectious Diseases, and Rheumatology (K.A., T.S.), Campus Benjamin Franklin; and the Institute of Medical Virology, Campus Mitte (J.H.) — all at Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin; and the Robert Koch Institute (C.K.) — all in Berlin.
Drs. Hofmann and Thiel contributed equally to this article.
Address reprint requests to Dr. Hütter at Medical Department III Hematology, Oncology, and Transfusion Medicine, Charité Campus Benjamin Franklin, Hindenburgdamm 30 D-12203 Berlin, Germany, or at gero.huetter@charite.de// <![CDATA[
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Full Text of this Article
This article has been cited by other articles:
- Arababadi, M. K., Hassanshahi, G., Azin, H., Salehabad, V. A., Araste, M., Pourali, R., Nekhei, Z. (2010). No Association Between CCR5-{Delta}32 Mutation and Multiple Sclerosis in Patients of Southeastern Iran. Lab Med 41: 31-33 [Abstract] [Full Text]
- Fauci, A. S., Folkers, G. K. (2009). Investing To Meet The Scientific Challenges Of HIV/AIDS. Health Aff (Millwood) 28: 1629-1641 [Abstract] [Full Text]
- Bonsignori, M., Moody, M. A., Parks, R. J., Holl, T. M., Kelsoe, G., Hicks, C. B., Vandergrift, N., Tomaras, G. D., Haynes, B. F. (2009). HIV-1 Envelope Induces Memory B Cell Responses That Correlate with Plasma Antibody Levels after Envelope gp120 Protein Vaccination or HIV-1 Infection. J. Immunol. 183: 2708-2717 [Abstract] [Full Text]
- Levy, J. A. (2009). The Unexpected Pleiotropic Activities of RANTES. J. Immunol. 182: 3945-3946 [Full Text]
- (2009). All you need to read in the other general journals. BMJ 338: b627-b627 [Full Text]
- (2009). Stem-Cell Transplantation Enables Long-Term HIV Control. AIDS Clin Care 2009: 1-1 [Full Text]
- Levy, J. A. (2009). Not an HIV Cure, but Encouraging New Directions. NEJM 360: 724-725 [Full Text]
From http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/360/7/692