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German Doctor Cures an HIV Patient With a Bone Marrow Transplant
reporter writes "HIV is the virus that causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Until now, HIV has no cure and has led to the deaths of over 25 million people. However, a possible cure has appeared. Dr. Gero Hutter, a brilliant physician in Germany, replaced the bone marrow of an HIV patient with the bone marrow of a donor who has natural immunity to HIV. The new bone marrow in the patient then produced immune-system cells that are immune to HIV. Being unable to hijack any immune cell, the HIV has simply disappeared. The patient has been free of HIV for about 2 years. Some physicians at UCLA have developed a similar therapy and plan to commercialize it."
I'll be really interested to see if this result can be replicated.
I'll be really interested to see if this DONOR can be replicated.
I've been expecting something like this ever since the discovery of HIV-immune individuals. So yes, the donor can be replicated.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Is there a way to create or replicate this bone marrow? Or will this immune donor be continually used for every AIDS patient in the world?
It's not quite as simple as that. As I understand it, there are different bone marrow types - just like you get different blood types - and for a transplant to be successful, you want to be transferring to someone with the same type. So for every HIV+ patient, you need to find a donor who is not only of the right type, but is also naturally immune.
Yeah there is...
Currently, the theory is that HIV immunity is provided by a mutation of the CCR5 receptor. In particular, it seems to provide an immunity also to the bubonic plague--it is as a result of the bubonic plague that this recessive mutation has manifested itself today in somewhat greater numbers in certain populations--natural selection, so to speak at work.
check out:
http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2005/01/66198
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCR5
On the contrary, bone marrow transplants are the cheapest transplants.
In essence, bone marrow transplantation is just an intravenous injection.
BMT is a major, major procedure.
With about 30% mortality, I've read.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Background for non-biologists: HIV typically gains entry to cells by binding two molecules on the healthy cell surface. These are CXCR4 and CCR5. About 1% of white males (other genders/races vary slightly) don't have CCR5; they seem completely healthy and their cells are highly resistant to HIV infection. So blocking the activity of CCR5 seems like an easy way to stop viral infection with no exprected side effects. Tricky to do, but probably worth the effort.
Anyway, the answer is "yes", sort of. Several antibodies and small peptides are in trials to block the CCR5 receptor; some are showing promise in animal trials.
The most famous is Maraviroc, a small molecule that binds CCR5 and stops is from binding HIV. It's sold by Pfizer and currently in use as an anti-HIV drug.
Another interesting possibility is gene therapy. Another group has recently made CD4 T cells (one of the cell types that HIV infects) express a small molecule to block their own CCR5 receptors, which works very well. I haven't seen a paper on it, but you should also be able to use similar techniques to completely shut down CCR5 production (using virus- or plasmid-borne shRNA, for example).
Finally, another group has managed to make rabbits produce antibodies against CCR5 receptors (Vaccine
Volume 26, Issue 45, 23 October 2008, Pages 5752-5759). Those antibodies are able to bind to CCR5 and completely block HIV infection, which is great. Stimulating an immune response against the patient's own immune cells sound a bit dodgey to me, but my immunology isn't great: maybe there's a well-established way around this problem that I just don't know about.
Most of the drug treatments seemed like a viable strategy at one point. HIV mutates extremely rapidly though, and it seems able to bypass almost anything we can throw at it. If the new types of drugs can reduce the virus's ability to replicate effectively enough that it doesn't get an opportunity evolve a way round then in theory it could work. The problem with that is that you would need to administer the drug reliably on schedule for every infected person all the time and that doesn't happen. The treatments are expensive, and even worse, enough people see HIV/AIDS as some sort of punishment for promiscuity that some people are denied treatments intermittently because people don't feel comfortable giving it to them.
Making money off of a disease which is very much kept in the vague, unclear, opaque situation is evil.
Where is the reproducible proof that HIV exists?
Where is the reproducible proof that HIV causes AIDS?
Go to the (American-run but internationally funded and popular) National Centre for Biotechnology Information here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez ...and type "HIV" into the search box. You'll get just under 192,000 peer-reviewd articles from groups all over the world, funded by various governments, public and private companies, charities and rich donors. Anything from HIV genome sequences and molecular sctructures through molecular biology, disease progression, transmission studies, all the way to local- regional- and global epidemiological studies. The evidence is pretty damn strong and well understood from the atomic level up to the global level.
Altenatively, click on the "Reviews" tab and it'll give you a mere 24,000 articles assessing, collating and criticising the others. Have fun!
True for HIV, True for HPV.
True for whatever.
When you've finsihsed the HIV evidence, feel free to look up the 15,000 HPV articles (or just 12,600 if you restrict your seach to "HPV AND cancer"). The HPV thing is actually very easy: most viruses carry genes evolved to push cells into their growth phase, because that forces the cells to release and synthesise resources that the virus must hijack to replicate. HPV-associated cancer happens when the viral gene gets incorporated into the cell's DNA (rare, but through well-established mechanisms) and get permanently switched on, making the cell grow and divide constantly. Any biology undergrad could tell you that if you asked. It's more common in the cervix simply because it's out of sight, and doesn't get noticed until it's really big and nasty. (Which is why all sexually actve women should be screened: catch it within the first 5 years and the cure rate is better than 98%. It's an easy cure if you *find* it)
THINK first. Do your research.
My undergraduate degree is in virology and I've just finished a PhD looking at how viruses interact with cancer and parts of the immune system. I've done plenty of thinking, and a hell of a lot o research. Now it's time for *you* to think, and for *you* to do some fucking research.
You're no better than the creatioists who say that evolution's impossible but have never botheres to get a fcuking clue how it actually works.
true, just like the quaint idea that medical care shouldn't bankrupt you.
Speaking as an American that's lived on both sides of the pond, with a mother in the states being nearly bankrupted by her cancer treatment and a mother-in-law in europe who had the same level of care with no added costs, I know which system I prefer.
Bone marrow removing is not very painful. It basically chemotherapy and all needed cells are collected from blood not from bones. I have been bone marrow donor for myself. Read about it http://rarediseases.about.com/od/rarediseasesb/a/bmt05.htm
If it makes you feel better, I'm at the end of a PhD in the field. So I know more about HIV and AIDS than most of the population and, indeed, am one of the "phoney researchers" who generates the same data that I am, apparrantly, ignoring.
Tell us - what's your Ph.D. in?
Try getting your science from reputable schools or journals rather than mass-market paperbacks.
Black Death is not a virus. It is a bacterium. Yersinia pestis.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
STD cases are rising every year (NON-CUMULATIVE figures, of course), yet where are all the teenagers dying from 'AIDS'?
The fast answer is that HIV is not a highly contagious disease. In fact, compared to something like measles -- or HPV or active herpes -- it is actually quite difficult to catch HIV. The reason we focus so much attention on it, however, is because unlike herpes or genital warts, you die from it.
That is, until recently. Compared to 1981, we have quite a lot of experience treating AIDS. In fact, the clinical definition of AIDS an HIV-positive patient with fewer than 200 T-cells per cubic millimeter of blood. By definition, if we can stop your T-cells from dying, you don't get AIDS. (But if we stop treating you, you do.)
Other than that, it's 2008. To say that HIV does not cause AIDS at this late stage in the game is akin to denying evolution. The amount of scientific evidence linking HIV to AIDS is simply overwhelming.
I'm not at the tail end of a PhD in biology or anything close, but even I know this much. You do yourself a disservice by approaching scientific topics with blinkers on.
Breakfast served all day!
Words fail me. The DEFINITION of AIDS REQUIRES the patient to be 'HIV positive' in order for them to be diagnosed with 'AIDS'... i.e. it's a circular argument, moron...
Well, that's Koch's Postulates for you. If an organism has a disease and you can isolate a pathogen from that organism and then culture that pathogen outside the organism, then introduce that pathogen to another organism and the new organism exhibits the same disease... well, if you can do that, then Koch might say you're onto something. (This HAS been done with HIV/AIDS, by the way.)
By your logic, if the definition of having the flu requires that the patient be infected with a strain of the influenza virus, then it's a circular argument to claim that influenza causes the flu. So long as influenza can be isolated from any organism that doesn't have sniffles, then influenza must not cause flu.
Or to put it even more simply for you retards: TB death - HIV = TB death TB death WITH HIV = 'AIDS'
It is you who are making the circular argument. It is entirely possible to die of tuberculosis without having a compromised immune system -- in fact, it happens all the time -- and these deaths would not be classified as AIDS. A tuberculosis patient who does not mount an immune response is an anomaly, and then doctors must investigate why there is no immune response. Tuberculosis is not caused by a virus, and does not attack immune system cells, therefore a low T-cell count is not considered a symptom of tuberculosis. HIV is a virus and HIV has been shown to attack immune cells, therefore when a patient with both tuberculosis and HIV dies of tuberculosis after having failed to mount an immune response, it seems only logical to suspect HIV. But you argue that HIV does not cause AIDS, and in fact HIV is a harmless virus, and therefore someone who dies of TB with a compromised immune system who also has HIV could not have failed to mount an immune response because of HIV. What, then is the reason for the lack of immune response?
All the scientific evidence proves, beyond ANY doubt, that 'AIDS' is not a sexually transmitted disease, that 'AIDS' 'medications' are what kill people in the West
How? How does it prove this? Please explain, because so far it doesn't seem as if you're adequately informed.
The article you cite is extremely easy to rebut. Like Duseberg's original claims, it does not cite any research later than 1997. HIV/AIDS research has come a long, long way since then. Furthermore, the article only focuses on research into AIDS cases in the U.S. Its hypothesis is that AIDS is caused by the use of AZT and other drugs, including recreational drugs. It furthermore claims that almost all AIDS is found in homosexual men and heterosexual drug abusers. The implication is that behaviors, including sex between men and drug use, are the cause of AIDS.
How does this article explain the AIDS epidemic in Africa, where AIDS is far, far more prevalent than in the U.S.? During the height of the African epidemic, Africans did not have access to AZT or similar drugs, nor did they use cocaine and amyl poppers in any great prevalence. Furthermore, in Africa the AIDS epidemic is primarily a disease of heterosexuals, including females.
How does a behavior-based cause of AIDS explain cases of AIDS in children and hemophiliacs?
How does this theory of AIDS explain why HIV+ patients have had longer lifespans since the beginning of the HAART (highly active antiretroviral therapy) era? If, as you claim, the cause of AIDS is in fact the drugs designed to cure it, then why does giving patients a combination of many such drugs make them live longer than they did when they had just one such drug (AZT)?
Of course, none of you will bother reading it, because you might have to THINK, and you would literally rather DIE, wouldn't you?
I have read it. It is you who are not thinking. In f
Breakfast served all day!