Stem Cells appear to have cured HIV – at least for now there are no visible signs of HIV

Stem Cells are truly miraculous with what can be done with some diseases and health problems becoming a-symptomatic after the procedure. This procedures was actually very risky and one physician said 1/3 of the patients could die from the procedure as it is shutting down the immune system with the transplant to allow that of the donor to take over. They also said the HIV virus could be hiding in other areas of the body, but 2 years with no sign is pretty miraculous by all means.

The related reading below has a multitude of posts on what’s going on with stem cells in many different areas including growing heart valves. Don’t miss the video from the TED meeting this year as well, amazing stuff with regenerational medicine and will be more coming in the next couple weeks on the topic. BD

Regenerative Medicine – Material and Cell Based Regeneration of the Human Body

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.

The case was first reported in November, and the new report is the first official publication of the case in a medical journal. Hutter and a team of medical professionals performed the stem cell transplant on the patient, an American living in Germany, to treat the man's leukemia, not the HIV itself.

HIV uses the CCR5 as a co-receptor (in addition to CD4 receptors) to latch on to and ultimately destroy immune system cells. Since the virus can't gain a foothold on cells that lack CCR5, people who have the mutation have natural protection. (There are other, less common HIV strains that use different co-receptors.)

People who inherit one copy of CCR5 delta32 take longer to get sick or develop AIDS if infected with HIV. People with two copies (one from each parent) may not become infected at all. The stem cell donor had two copies.