The article speaks for itself. An HIV+ person received a stem cell transplant to treat leukemia. The transplant was from someone with natural resistance to HIV. The donor’s HIV resistance was conferred upon the recipient:
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.
via Man appears free of HIV after stem cell transplant – CNN.com.
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Wow! If true, this is huge (and fantastic) news.
Well – CNN is careful to couch it as “appears” to be free of HIV – so I imagine that there’s some due diligence to be done before a large scale announcement that traits – like HIV resistance – can be passed with transplants. I look at something like this and wonder if a transplant from an donor that can eat fish could “cure” my fish allergy.
A few clarifications.
This article was posted here 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/
Original article is from Wall Street Journal – Nov 2008 – http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122602394113507555.html?mod=googlenews_wsj#articleTabs%3Darticle
“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.
There were no embryos involved in this. Any time you see the words “treated” or “improved” or “recovered” associated with the words “stem cells”, assume it was from adult stem cells until proven otherwise. http://repairstemcell.wordpress.com/stem-cells-for-newbies/
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.
also, http://repairstemcell.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/stem-cells-hiv-part-1-history-california-scientists-tout-stem-cells-use-to-battle-hiv-the-body/
and http://repairstemcell.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/stem-cells-hiv-part-3-major-advance-in-hiv-gene-therapy/
David – thanks a tonne for the additional information & links.