Bone Marrow transplant in Germany

[anam_moon]

Bone Marrow transplant seems to have cured man of AIDS.

Obviously this is not going to be the answer to treating AIDS, but I think it certainly opens some interesting avenues for researching possible treatments.

Comments

[ladysashi.livejournal.com]

In effect, what they did in this experiment was to remove the patient's bone marrow throughout his body, replacing it with marrow from a donor who carried a genetic mutation (Delta 32 - which is, interestingly enough, the by-product of ancestral exposure to the Black Plague in Europe in the Middle Ages), and then to irradiate the shit out of him until all white blood cells in his body were, in effect, damaged beyond repair or outright killed. Bold, but very dangerous.

There's no proof, however, that the HIV in this man's body didn't survive his procedure, as viruses are very resilient and can lie dormant for years. Which is why there is great skepticism from the scientific world about this man being absolutely "cured." In order to make this claim, the doctors would have to test every single red and white blood cell in the patient's body, to assure that the virus wasn't dormant (an impossible feat by today's medical science standards). Also, because he'd been exposed to HIV at all, his DNA will permanently carry the marker for this virus. That means, potentially, that somewhere in the future, one of his progeny might very well be able to carry or even possibly transmit the virus (hypothetically, exposure could pass from him to his female partner, who could them pass it onto a conceived child, with a reinforced exposure through breast feeding, and so on down the line).

Having some knowledge of virology, I am skeptical as well as to the claim that this man is "cured" for good. We've never been able to "eradicate" any virus in a host once it has taken hold; we've only been able to cut off the virus' ability to replicate through immunization (the patient is still infected, but not overtly infectious -- this is the case with every virus one is exposed to, from the common cold on up to more exotic strains). The only known way to kill a virus is through intense heat, or extreme exposure to chemicals -- both of which would normally kill a patient before treatment could occur. And, HIV is a very tricky virus -- it uses the immune system's own defense mechanisms (white blood cells) as its replication vector. I hate to say it, but I believe that it will prove almost impossible to eradicate HIV with current medical science techniques. I think most of medical science knows it too, which is why the mandate (and funding) for HIV research has shifted over the past decade from "cure" to "triage."