Only one man has been cured of HIV And this is how it happened. Despite decades of research, Timothy Ray Brown is the only person ever to have been cured of HIV. He was diagnosed in 1995 and was on antiretroviral therapy (ART), for 11 years. When he was diagnosed with leukemia, he was given chemotherapy but it was not successful, so a bone marrow transplant (BMT) was done. Research shows that three factors may have contributed to this. The BMT was done using marrow from an individual with rare a mutation that alters one of the receptors HIV uses to get inside white blood cells. On top of that, Browns immune system was severely compromised because of conditioning, the chemotherapy and radiation used in preparation for the transplant. Finally, the transplanted cells could have attacked Brown’s own cells, which is known as graft-versus-host disease, and hence destroyed any remaining HIV reservoirs. New research conducted in monkeys shows that conditioning alone is not sufficient. Monkeys subjected to conditioning, then given a BMT from their own stem cells had a recurrence of viral infections. However, this also suggests that BMT using marrow with the rare genetic mutation plus the graft-versus-host disease played a bigger role in curing Brown than was anticipated. Source: plospathogens.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.ppat.1004406 Please Like, Comment or Share.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 18:37:53 +0000
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