Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Man With Aids, Cured?

I remembered seeing a story about this on the news about a month ago, so i looked online for an article about it. Basically, a man living in germany with both HIV, and Leukemia, has been cured of both illnesses. After receiving a stem cell transplant from a donor, and intense chemotherapy the man was unsuccessfully cured of leukemia. However, after a second stem cell transplant from the same donor, the man was cured of his leukemia and has now tested negative for HIV as well for the last 3 years. The reason this happenned is because the donor had a rare 1 in a million gene mutation that attacks HIV cells. This has since opened a door for new gene therapy research and the possibility of finding a more realistic cure for HIV. Although in this case, the man was cured of HIV it is not practical for large scale use because there was a 30% chance that he could have died while undergoing the treatment. Also, he would have never been given the opportunity for the stem cell transplant if he had not had leukemia as well.

No comments:

Post a Comment