London HIV patient becomes world's second AIDS cure hope

[webfact]

London HIV patient becomes world's second AIDS cure hope

By Kate Kelland

 

FILE photo for illustration purposes only

 

LONDON (Reuters) - An HIV-positive man in Britain has become the second known adult worldwide to be cleared of the AIDS virus after he received a bone marrow transplant from an HIV resistant donor, his doctors said.

 

Almost three years after receiving bone marrow stem cells from a donor with a rare genetic mutation that resists HIV infection - and more than 18 months after coming off antiretroviral drugs - highly sensitive tests still show no trace of the man's previous HIV infection.

 

"There is no virus there that we can measure. We can't detect anything," said Ravindra Gupta, a professor andHIV biologist who co-led a team of doctors treating the man.

 

The case is a proof of the concept that scientists will one day be able to end AIDS, the doctors said, but does not mean a cure for HIV has been found.

Gupta described his patient as "functionally cured" and "in remission", but cautioned: "It's too early to say he's cured."

 

The man is being called "the London patient", in part because his case is similar to the first known case of a functional cure of HIV - in an American man, Timothy Brown, who became known as the Berlin patient when he underwent similar treatment in Germany in 2007 which also cleared his HIV.

 

Brown, who had been living in Berlin, has since moved to the United States and, according to HIV experts, is stillHIV-free.

 

Some 37 million people worldwide are currently infected with HIV and the AIDS pandemic has killed around 35 million people worldwide since it began in the 1980s. Scientific research into the complex virus has in recent years led to the development of drug combinations that can keep it at bay in most patients.

 

Gupta, now at Cambridge University, treated the London patient when he was working at University College London. The man had contracted HIV in 2003, Gupta said, and in 2012 was also diagnosed with a type of blood cancer called Hodgkin's Lymphoma.

 

LAST CHANCE

In 2016, when he was very sick with cancer, doctors decided to seek a transplant match for him. "This was really his last chance of survival," Gupta told Reuters in an interview.

 

The donor - who was unrelated - had a genetic mutation known as 'CCR5 delta 32', which confers resistance toHIV.

 

The transplant went relatively smoothly, Gupta said, but there were some side effects, including the patient suffering a period of "graft-versus-host" disease - a condition in which donor immune cells attack the recipient's immune cells.

 

Most experts say it is inconceivable such treatments could be a way of curing all patients. The procedure is expensive, complex and risky. To do this in others, exact match donors would have to be found in the tiny proportion of people — most of them of northern European descent — who have the CCR5 mutation that makes them resistant to the virus.

 

Specialists said it is also not yet clear whether the CCR5 resistance is the only key - or whether the graft versus host disease may have been just as important. Both the Berlin and London patients had this complication, which may have played a role in the loss of HIV-infected cells, Gupta said.

 

Sharon Lewin, an expert at Australia's Doherty Institute and co-chair of the International AIDS Society's cure research advisory board, told Reuters the London case points to new avenues for study.

 

"We haven't cured HIV, but (this) gives us hope that it's going to be feasible one day to eliminate the virus," she said.

 

Gupta said his team plans to use these findings to explore potential new HIV treatment strategies. "We need to understand if we could knock out this (CCR5) receptor in people with HIV, which may be possible with gene therapy," he said.

 

The London patient, whose case was set to be reported in the journal Nature and presented at a medical conference in Seattle on Tuesday, has asked his medical team not to reveal his name, age, nationality or other details.

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-03-05

[dick dasterdly]

The drugs available nowadays for HIV patients work very well, but presumably are very expensive?

 

Let's hope this latest discovery proves to be a good way forward in the search for a way to eliminate HIV/Aids.

 

"Most experts say it is inconceivable such treatments could be a way of curing all patients. The procedure is expensive, complex and risky."

 

Have to say that I'm more than a bit cynical about the 'expensive' part - as providing drugs for decades (to keep Aids at bay, rather than actually defeating the HIV virus) is also expensive....

[Oxx]

I don't know who writes the titles for these topics, but "AIDS cure hope" shows a complete and utter failure to read and understand the article concerned.

Edited March 5, 2019 by Oxx

[BritManToo]

4 hours ago, dick dasterdly said:

The drugs available nowadays for HIV patients work very well, but presumably are very expensive?

 

My pal who caught HIV in Chiang Mai from a girl in LK a couple of years back isn't finding that.

He's been going downhill the whole time, despite being treated in a specialist London hospital.

Now bedridden since just before Xmas, nothing seems to help him.

Not even 60 years old.

Edited March 5, 2019 by BritManToo

[roo860]

My pal who caught HIV in Chiang Mai from a girl in LK a couple of years back isn't finding that.
He's been going downhill the whole time, despite being treated in a specialist London hospital.
Now bedridden since just before Xmas, nothing seems to help him.
Not even 60 years old.

I suppose a condom might have helped him, bad way to go.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[atyclb]

1 hour ago, Oxx said:

I don't know who writes the titles for these topics, but "AIDS cure hope" shows a complete and utter failure to read and understand the article concerned.

 

not at all

 

why do you say that?  

[Oxx]

57 minutes ago, atyclb said:

 

not at all

 

why do you say that?  

 

Uh, because I read the article and I'm scientifically literate.

 

Maybe you missed the bit "Most experts say it is inconceivable such treatments could be a way of curing all patients. The procedure is expensive, complex and risky. To do this in others, exact match donors would have to be found in the tiny proportion of people — most of them of northern European descent — who have the CCR5 mutation that makes them resistant to the virus."

 

 

[atyclb]

13 minutes ago, Oxx said:

1 hour ago, atyclb said:

 

not at all

 

why do you say that?  

 

Uh, because I read the article and I'm scientifically literate.

 

Maybe you missed the bit "Most experts say it is inconceivable such treatments could be a way of curing all patients. The procedure is expensive, complex and risky. To do this in others, exact match donors would have to be found in the tiny proportion of people — most of them of northern European descent — who have the CCR5 mutation that makes them resistant to the virus."

 

 

 my take on it is the ccr5 mutation or the likes may hold the clue/key and research could possibly build on that, ie; dna mapping manipulation, gene therapy and knowledge/science is always advancing therefore the current belief today can very well change with time.  even if in the future it works for less than 100% it is still a positive development.

 

sorry for having optimism

Edited March 5, 2019 by atyclb

[samran]

7 hours ago, dick dasterdly said:

The drugs available nowadays for HIV patients work very well, but presumably are very expensive?

 

Let's hope this latest discovery proves to be a good way forward in the search for a way to eliminate HIV/Aids.

 

"Most experts say it is inconceivable such treatments could be a way of curing all patients. The procedure is expensive, complex and risky."

 

Have to say that I'm more than a bit cynical about the 'expensive' part - as providing drugs for decades (to keep Aids at bay, rather than actually defeating the HIV virus) is also expensive....

Having had to take care of someone who went through two of them, the potential for something going wrong is huge with a BMT. 

 

Basically it is a mega dose of chemo which kills your bone marrow and with it any ability to produce your own blood. You have no immunity as a result so you are sealed off in a positive airpressure sterile room between two doors. This can be anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. I know someone who was in isolstion for nearly a year. 

 

Then you actually have to find compatable marrow which is easier said than done due to a lack of donors, and the fact that genenetics makes matches even more tricky. 

 

As opposed to organ transplants, where you have to watch your immune system attacking the new organ, with a BMT you have to make sure the new marrow - which not only produces your new blood but also your new immunity, doesn’t go off and attack the rest of you. 

 

The new immune system attacking its host is called graft versus host disease. Unless you had a perfect match (usually from a sibling and even then it is only 1/4 that a sibling is a perfect match) the it is a bit of a lottery as to what can happen with GvH disease. 

 

I’ve seen people who have had a BMT to treat otherwise deadly cancer, and they are left with he equivalent of 3rd degree burns over their body as the new immune system went on the rampage. And that is with anti rejection drugs.

 

So it isn’t terribly simple, or, cheap.

Edited March 5, 2019 by samran

[Jan Dietz]

CRISPR to the rescue?

[bomber]

Party tonight at the coconut bar.

[baansgr]

" The London patient, whose case was set to be reported in the journal Nature and presented at a medical conference in Seattle on Tuesday, has asked his medical team not to reveal his name, age, nationality or other details."

I wonder why, Adobola Genaffade

[AlexRich]

I recall in the UK in late 1970's television adverts for "slimming chocolates", brand name AIDS! Seemed to disappear in the early eighties ... the owner/inventor must have thought at the time he was on to a right winner. 

 

Slimming chocolate ... what could possibly go wrong?

Edited March 5, 2019 by AlexRich

[Oxx]

13 hours ago, AlexRich said:

I recall in the UK in late 1970's television adverts for "slimming chocolates", brand name AIDS!

 

Not "Aids", but "Ayds".

[Kieran00001]

22 hours ago, dick dasterdly said:

The drugs available nowadays for HIV patients work very well, but presumably are very expensive?

 

Let's hope this latest discovery proves to be a good way forward in the search for a way to eliminate HIV/Aids.

 

"Most experts say it is inconceivable such treatments could be a way of curing all patients. The procedure is expensive, complex and risky."

 

Have to say that I'm more than a bit cynical about the 'expensive' part - as providing drugs for decades (to keep Aids at bay, rather than actually defeating the HIV virus) is also expensive....

 

You are cynical of the fact that a bone marrow transplant is expensive?  In the US they cost between $250,000 and $500,000, while in some countries anti-retrovirals can be found for as little as $75 per year.

[Kieran00001]

13 hours ago, baansgr said:

" The London patient, whose case was set to be reported in the journal Nature and presented at a medical conference in Seattle on Tuesday, has asked his medical team not to reveal his name, age, nationality or other details."

I wonder why, Adobola Genaffade

 

What is that supposed to mean?