Engineered Stem Cells Seek Out and Kill HIV In Mice

An anonymous reader writes "Expanding on previous research providing proof-of-principle that human stem cells can be genetically engineered into HIV-fighting cells, a team of UCLA researchers have now demonstrated that these cells can actually attack HIV-infected cells in a living organism. From the article: 'This most recent study shows that scientists can manipulate stem cells — immature cells that can develop into any type of cell — by implanting genes, turning it into killer T cells which can kill the virus in living mice. While the mouse form of HIV is not exactly the same as it is in humans, the infection and progression closely mimic the virus in humans, and eliminating it is a huge step forward, researchers said.'"

Comments

If this leads to a cure for Human HIV...

[dryriver]

Then much kudos/applause to the scientists who make this happen. Its about time that the mega-nastiness that is HIV/AIDS becomes curable, and I hope that the disease/virus will hopefully be eradicated completely from this planet some day. (On a slightly sentimental note, it is too bad that thousands of lab-mice/-rats have had to suffer all kinds of pains in various science-labs over the decades, just so that we humans can overcome common diseases. Maybe some lab-rat/lab-mice statues should be errected in a few town squares somewhere, so that we become conscious of where our medical cures come from...)

Re:If this leads to a cure for Human HIV...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't count on this being a cure. More likely it will just be a better treatment. One of the reasons that HIV is so hard to cure is that it "hides" by infecting cells that then lie dormant for a long time before they start producing new HIV. This means that even if you can kill all of the active HIV virus, new ones will pop up in the apparently cured patient. I would expect that this treatment would have the same drawback.

Re:If this leads to a cure for Human HIV...

[Gordo_1]

Since you're so self-righteously against scientific research on animals, perhaps you should consider making a stand and refusing to use therapies that were tested on animals.

Re:If this leads to a cure for Human HIV...

[Asic Eng]

We have to kill millions of rodents to protect ourselves from disease and to secure our food supplies. Even if you decide to live as a vegetarian mice and rats need to be killed e.g. for grain supplies. It's really absurd to put the focus on the inconsequential number of lab mice.

We should rather make sure that the scientists who use these lab mice to cure and treat horrible diseases get the respect and public backing they deserve.

Re:If this leads to a cure for Human HIV...

[tragedy]

This treatment is meant to actually kill off the infected cells before they spread more HIV around the body. Combining this with anti-retrovirals might actually be able to wipe all of the HIV out of a patients body. At least it's a step in that direction.

Re:If this leads to a cure for Human HIV...

[Thiez]

I can't really be bothered to RTFA, but depending on their approach you may end up with memory T-cells afterwards, which would mean the immune system would reactivate whenever the virus makes a return. In effect, you would acquire an immunity.

Re:If this leads to a cure for Human HIV...

[Cstryon]

The right to survive. We are fitter than them. My health, and my species health means more to me than some lower creatures life. Same reason for why I eat.

I imagine it would suck for us when some higher alien species starts doing the same thing to us. ( not likely as biologically we'd probably be very different. Maybe using us for their own benefit in some other ways),. But they would have, naturally, every right too. Good thing we are capable of complicated thought, and perhaps could up-rise.

The only thing that makes me worth living in nature is my ability to keep stronger creatures from using me for their good.

Re:If this leads to a cure for Human HIV...

[silentcoder]

It takes a very long time and a lot of money to go from concept to cure. Generally many, many years of testing and research. Often research that shows promise early on fades out later as it's found to have bad side-effects or be less effective in primates - so not everything pans out. Many times if more than one vector is followed then a good approach may simply be finished too late and another (that isn't better - just as good) is ready sooner.
The process takes long with very good reason - all that testing is there to ensure that the medicines we produce are safe to use. There's no point in a medicine that cures a disease perfectly if 80% of the patients get killed by the treatment. Sometimes bad side effects are still acceptable if they offer a cure or an improved quality of life while dying (chemo for cancer patients for example) but if chemo killed 50% of it's takers in a day it wouldn't seem a worthwhile trade-off anymore now would it ?

Slashdot by nature of it's audience reports the research as it happens - often years (perhaps decades) from a commercial cure being available. That doesn't mean this work is something shrug off. The fact that we have so many different avenues for attacking HIV and cancer being researched right now is a good thing. It means if any one of them is going to pay off we'll get the results. Less research funds would mean that less ideas can be tested.
It could take a while before any of these researchers get results - but that doesn't mean it isn't good that they are doing research, and that we shouldn't be aware of it.
Not all of it will pay off - but history suggests that some of it will.

Basically what all this means is that we will probably see cures for two of the biggest killers in the world today within our lifetimes. Perhaps not in time to save our parents, but certainly in time to save our children.

Re:If this leads to a cure for Human HIV...

[silentcoder]

>stealing away their free will

Oh come off it. There are serious scientific doubt if free will is even physically possible. The universe is a predictable system of cause and effect, all matter follows fixed paths through time and space right back to the moment of the big bang. There is absolutely no proof that the matter in our brains behave any differently - indeed free will may well be simply an illusion - what it feels like have a brain despite the fact that what you will end up deciding is always predetermined by the laws of physics.

This isn't proven (or perhaps even provable) but the evidence is very much that free will doesn't really exist. Does that mean we should just assume there's no such thing and do away with freedom (no freedom makes sense without free will). No. It means whether or not we do that is not actually something we can decide. Can we actually judge a criminal for his crimes if there is no free will ? Actually if there's no free will - we can't NOT judge him.

That said - there may be such a thing after all, we have no idea. If nothing else the sheer complexity of an advanced brain makes the results so unpredictable that from the outside the results of it existing or not are completely indistinguishable. If free will exists at all - it exists because our brains are so damn complex that despite being predetermined their outcomes are completely unpredictable.

So to suggest that the far simpler brain of a rat has free will still makes absolutely no sense. It's simply not possible. Besides which - many of those tests you so hate actually proved that they don't. Human brains are complex - they may have something like free will as an emergent phenomenon but rat brains are (by comparison) much, much simpler - and there's just not enough of them to produce anything that even remotely resembles free will. We've proven that.

I don't think the emergent property we call free will only applies to humans, some other intelligent creatures probably have variations on it (domestic docs and cats - because of the stimulation of human interaction probably develop it, their wild counterparts probably do not), elephants, dolphins and octopi probably have something close... but rats and mice ?

And there, ladies and gentlemen, is the problem with vegans: they never bother to learn any science and apply as much cognitive dissonance as they can to exclude everything that doesn't make them feel good.
Humans are not herbivores, we are omnivores and like every other primate meat is a natural and needed part of our diet. Chimps love baby monkeys... for dinner (nice and tender meat). Baboons regularly hunt antelope (I've watched them do it).

Primates are omnivores. That's science, and a vegetarian or vegan diet can NEVER be completely healthy (though if well planned it can come close - see I actually do care about science so I don't discount the real reality even if it doesn't suit my position).

Basically dude... in the end every species is in it for themselves, that's exactly how nature intended it, that's how species progress. If it's a choice between a family member dying of HIV or a million dead mice... I choose my family member, and there is nothing wrong with, it's exactly how nature wants us to act (and the fact that we as a whole constantly do is another argument against the traditional view of free will)

Re:If this leads to a cure for Human HIV...

[mcgrew]

that's why modern medicine is so much more advanced than it was even a hundred years ago.

A hundred years ago? Not even fifty. In the 1960s they used ethyl ether as an anesthetic. Highly falmmable (it's still used as automotive starting fluid) and really NASTY effects. They used it on me when I had a tonsillectomy as a kid, then a couple years later when I broke both my arms. The stuff is a terrible nightmare trip to hell and you wake up sick as a dog.

Now they say "ok, you're going to sleep now" and you say "uh, it's not working" and they reply "we're done, you're in the recovery room."

Tuberculosis meant having a lung removed. No longer. A gall bladder operation left a six inch scar, now half an inch. Polio meant a dead or crippled child. Now it's gone, or nearly so.

In the sixties, McCoy's sick bay was futuristic; they had nothing like his monitors. Today his sick bay looks primitive.

In the eighties, HIV was a death sentence. Now they can control it with drugs and keep you alive for the length of a normal lifetime.

In the fifties, any cancer was a death sentence. TB meant you were never going to be able to do hard work again, if you even survived.

There were no organ transplants. Your kidneys failed, you died. Period. No LASIC, no CrystaLens, no soft contact lenses, no antivirals, no naproxin sodium, no viagra, no SSRIs, no CAT scans, no MRIs.

Today's young people have no idea how primitive it was 50 years ago.

Re:Waste of money

[million_monkeys]

What do you mean AIDS gets all the pub? Cancer wins 2:1

Re:Not going to happen

[Dutchmaan]

...a conspiracy theorist and a catholic walk into a slashdot bar...

Re:Not going to happen

[debilo]

....and the Catholic says to the conspiracy theorist "Are you underage?" and he says "No." and the Catholic says "Burn in hell."

Re:First

[Mithent]

A lot of "we injected him with stem cells!" is rather questionable, something akin to throwing some parts into a car's engine bay if it stops working. Sure, the parts might potentially be useful, but they're not necessarily the right ones, nor will they necessarily end up in the right places. There's certainly potential for future stem-cell based therapies, but most things that you can get done in clinics today are of dubious benefit.

Maybe not

[NotSoHeavyD3]

I mean the article isn't very clear but I wouldn't think you'd need embryonic stem cells for this. I'd think a hematopoietic stem cell should work since they're the ones that turn into Killer-T cells. Anyway that's what they're transplanting when they give you a bone marrow transplant. Admittedly bone marrow transplant is basically one of the most dangerous medical procedures they can do to you so hopefully this means they'll be able to do a safer version of this transplant. Hey, any medical researchers here to let us know which kind of stem cell they're talking about?

Re:Not going to happen

[Mr2cents]

Clearly this shows that Douglas Adams was correct in his view that mice run this world. We can't cure ourselves, but we spend billions trying to cure mice. Can't you people see what's going on here? They have all the best medicine, we're lagging behind by decades!

Re:Waste of money

[postbigbang]

Go ahead and try to prevent it. Seems pretty tough to do. Let's, while were at it, prevent people from driving drunk, killing others in rage, and war.

People behave as they will behave. Some get HIV in ways that don't involve sex, although these are rare they are statistically significant.

Sex drives people, and they do it unprotected by condoms and common sense. This is who we are. So is cancer. We know a few things that can easily start it. A few things that can prevent it. A few things that cure it.

People still die from either one. Both need a cure. You're absolutely right: still a major problem to be solved.

What could possibly go wrong?

[thisisauniqueid]

Cue a comment about Bolivian tree lizards.

DRACOs simpler/easier? (some old news was better)

[hsalstond]

There's definitely incredible potential with the ability to engineer natural killer cells, no doubt about it. But I see a simpler and sooner available solution to HIV and other viral disease with DRACOs (altho it maybe only treatable with these in an early stage or as a 'temporary universal vaccine'). DRACOs (Double-stranded RNA Activated Caspase Oligomerizers) are the class of combo ds-DNA detection protein and a programmed cell-death signal protein. The combination makes the cell's automatic suicide process extremely sensitive to viral presence (preventing the cell from hosting viral reproduction). Only invented last year, these are still awaiting human testing, but they do appear to be a miraculously perfect cure/temporary vaccine for apparently ALL viral disease. These are pretty much the most promising looking antiviral drugs ever. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/antiviral-0810.html

Re:Waste of money

[jd.schmidt]

Sorry I got to call BS on this. In fact we have been able to reduce Drunk Driving, domestic murders and other problems through education and social planning.

While I am totally in support of scientific research on AIDS and other diseases of mankind (I sure like money spent on that more than on bombs!), We in fact have known everything we need to greatly mitigate or even stop AIDS for years. Most of the countries that have the worst problem in many cases do because their societies didn't catch the clue train and denied the causes of AIDS. And no, I am not advocating abstinence only solutions.

Denying this is to very bad for society, education and people learning to modify their behavior IS one of our best tools to fight this epidemic at the moment!
.