HIV case cured?

[Trotter]

From what I read (somewhere), they have found that some adult stem cells are actually more potent than embryonic. If I remember correctly the cells are either from the skin or fat and are not that hard to obtain. I am thinking it was from fat as I made the comment to my wife, "Hey, I could fix up a small army."

 

[Apokalipse]

From what I've been reading about HIV treatments is that basically, some drugs they have generally are pretty effective against active HIV.
The big problem is that some of the HIV virus lays dormant, hiding in places like bone marrow. And the drugs can't attack the dormant HIV virus.

Attempts to cure HIV have basically included attempts to force dormant HIV into its active state so that it can be killed off. But so far there hasn't been a successful cure this way.

There have apparently been cases where people who have needed bone marrow transplants found that they were HIV negative, since the bone marrow that the HIV was hiding dormant in was removed and replaced - though it would have required the person was also taking anti HIV drugs to kill off active HIV.

In this case, the cure worked because HIV usually needs to bind with the CCR5 receptor in cells. And a small percentage of people (1% of caucasians) in fact don't have the CCR5 receptor for HIV to bind to - which included the person whose stem cells were donated.
It's possible that the HIV virus can mutate to bind to the CXCR4 receptor instead, but he was lucky enough for that not to happen.

 

[PP Mguire]

From what I read (somewhere), they have found that some adult stem cells are actually more potent than embryonic. If I remember correctly the cells are either from the skin or fat and are not that hard to obtain. I am thinking it was from fat as I made the comment to my wife, "Hey, I could fix up a small army."

I know thats not funny but i lold.

 

[Yami]

This is great news, assuming it lives up to its reported potential.

 

[Abstract Hero]

This is a great step in medical science, I think we all agree, because it opens up the stem cell theories to another look and from what Apokalipse says it sounds like what better disease to cure first than one of the most stubborn of all.

Lets hope the scientists come to some hard conclusive evidence.

 

[Apokalipse]

I think that it's a large possibility there will be a decent general cure for HIV within 5-10 years.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

There has been a lot of breakthroughs this year in cancer and HIV, the cancer treatments I have read about involve taking the persons DNA, and basically injecting cancerous tumors with some concoction formed from the DNA that isn't damaged, the tumors have apparently either died, or shrunk enough to be removed safely.

But yea, as time moves forward there will be far more "cures" found, and hopefully, these cures wont be for the super rich, as these diseases hit the poor the hardest it seems.

 

[Jayce]

I sure hope there's a fix for cancer, HIV, and other diseases soon. It's been so rough seeing people with cancer that you care about suffer with it. I lost an uncle in July to cancer, and currently another uncle is in a lot of pain dealing with it. I also found out last night that my aunt has cancer. It's such a helpless feeling.

 

[Yami]

Apparantly 1 in 3 people get some form of cancer in their lives. You'd really think we'd have cured it by now, but no, we're busy spending money on smartphones n' shiz.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

The thing about cancer is, it's usually genetic degradation.