The BEST news I've read in a while....
So, I don't often make posts like this - bear with me.
Today, I read news that has made me happier than I've been in a VERY LONG TIME.
Stem cell transplant has cured HIV infection in 'Berlin patient', say doctors
Keith Alcorn
Published: 13 December 2010
Timothy Ray Brown gave an interview to German magazine Stern.
Doctors who carried out a stem cell transplant on an HIV-infected man with leukaemia in 2007 say they now believe the man to have been cured of HIV infection as a result of the treatment, which introduced stem cells which happened to be resistant to HIV infection.
The man received bone marrow from a donor who had natural resistance to HIV infection; this was due to a genetic profile which led to the CCR5 co-receptor being absent from his cells. The most common variety of HIV uses CCR5 as its ‘docking station’, attaching to it in order to enter and infect CD4 cells, and people with this mutation are almost completely protected against infection.
The case was first reported at the 2008 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston, and Berlin doctors subsequently published a detailed case history in the New England Journal of Medicine in February 2009.
They have now published a follow-up report in the journal Blood, arguing that based on the results of extensive tests, “It is reasonable to conclude that cure of HIV infection has been achieved in this patient.”
Read the rest here, including background on the case etc. etc.
When I read this news today, I think I sat in my couch crying for nearly half an hour. This is something that's very close to my heart for those of you that don't know --- which is most of you, I think. Where I come from, life expectancy when I was growing up (not that long ago) was around age 33. I distinctly remember my sexual education teacher standing at the front of the classroom informing us, quite casually, that 1-in-3 would be dead from AIDS-related illnesses by age 30. The part of the globe I'm from has one of, if not THE highest rates of infection in the world. And it's not just hard, cold stats --- it's my family, my friends, people I've worked with and continue to work with. Some of them, I've lost to AIDS-related illness --- I lost someone close to me just earlier this year. Some of them are living, trying to live, surviving I guess. But a lot of the time the circumstances make even that near-impossible.
So reading this story today. I'm hoping and praying that this means something and that this is the breakthrough we've been waiting for! I just had to shout my joy and hopefulness (and fear that this is a trick or another dead end; as well as worry about the next steps in the research etc.) somewhere!
Today, I read news that has made me happier than I've been in a VERY LONG TIME.
Stem cell transplant has cured HIV infection in 'Berlin patient', say doctors
Keith Alcorn
Published: 13 December 2010
Timothy Ray Brown gave an interview to German magazine Stern.
Doctors who carried out a stem cell transplant on an HIV-infected man with leukaemia in 2007 say they now believe the man to have been cured of HIV infection as a result of the treatment, which introduced stem cells which happened to be resistant to HIV infection.
The man received bone marrow from a donor who had natural resistance to HIV infection; this was due to a genetic profile which led to the CCR5 co-receptor being absent from his cells. The most common variety of HIV uses CCR5 as its ‘docking station’, attaching to it in order to enter and infect CD4 cells, and people with this mutation are almost completely protected against infection.
The case was first reported at the 2008 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston, and Berlin doctors subsequently published a detailed case history in the New England Journal of Medicine in February 2009.
They have now published a follow-up report in the journal Blood, arguing that based on the results of extensive tests, “It is reasonable to conclude that cure of HIV infection has been achieved in this patient.”
Read the rest here, including background on the case etc. etc.
When I read this news today, I think I sat in my couch crying for nearly half an hour. This is something that's very close to my heart for those of you that don't know --- which is most of you, I think. Where I come from, life expectancy when I was growing up (not that long ago) was around age 33. I distinctly remember my sexual education teacher standing at the front of the classroom informing us, quite casually, that 1-in-3 would be dead from AIDS-related illnesses by age 30. The part of the globe I'm from has one of, if not THE highest rates of infection in the world. And it's not just hard, cold stats --- it's my family, my friends, people I've worked with and continue to work with. Some of them, I've lost to AIDS-related illness --- I lost someone close to me just earlier this year. Some of them are living, trying to live, surviving I guess. But a lot of the time the circumstances make even that near-impossible.
So reading this story today. I'm hoping and praying that this means something and that this is the breakthrough we've been waiting for! I just had to shout my joy and hopefulness (and fear that this is a trick or another dead end; as well as worry about the next steps in the research etc.) somewhere!