Stem Cell Treatment Cures AIDS

[London2Baires]

It's a non-scaleable and high risk treatment which doesn't work for everyone, but this looks to be a serious step forward.

"The landmark case of a patient who has recovered completely from HIV could "open the door" to developing new treatments for the virus, a scientist has said."

See article:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/hiv-cure-patient-london-ucl-berlin-health-a8808006.html

 

[PoorSoul]

This is 10 year old tech unfortunately.

 

[London2Baires]

This is 10 year old tech unfortunately.

Which part of the tech are you referring to?

Though the broader tech may well be old, its successful application in curing AIDS successfully is new, right?

 

[PoorSoul]

No, hiv has been cured for 10 years. The first patient was 2008. And, really, the first functional cure using this method was in 1998. The only difference between the 1998 and 2008 patient is the former had a detectable hiv load, but it never grows and they don't need medicine and it has no ill-effects (no AIDS) while the latter has no hiv just like the 2018 patient.

It's interesting they can replicate the work, but not groundbreaking. We are still waiting for a real cure that can actually be done at scale. Hopefully one comes soon, but looking at medicines track-record which is one of lots of hype and promise and under-delivery it could be 40-50 more years.

 

[PoorSoul]

I will also add that some treatments resulted from the 2008 patient discovery. Mainly, trying to replace white blood cells with gene therapy modified cells, etc. So far though, all have been failures.

 

[PoorSoul]

Btw the work done by this company is pretty cool if it works: https://www.immunocore.com/

It has broad application beyond HIV. And if it works for HIV it would be a functional cure (virus under control naturally with no ill-effects).

 

[London2Baires]

Thanks PoorSoul; very interesting details!

 

[jantango]