While treating a patient for leukemia, doctors inadvertently cured his case of AIDS
Posted 11.14.2008 at 2:55 pm
15 Comments
Holy crap. These guys in Germany just cured AIDS!
Of course, the procedure is so expensive, complicated, and risky that it's not replicable as a large-scale public health strategy, but we'll ignore that for a minute. Here's how they did it. Drs. Gero Hutter and Eckhard Thiel are blood cancer experts at the Charite Medical University in Berlin. Their patient, an American ex-pat, was suffering from leukemia as well as a full-blown case of AIDS. His case was so desperate that his doctors decided to get craaazy and give him a bone-marrow transplant--(this isn't the crazy part)--using blood stem cells from a donor who was immune to HIV (this is). About 10 years ago, doctors discovered that a few of their gay male patients never developed AIDS, despite engaging in risky sex with hundreds of partners. It turned out that they had a rare mutation called Delta 32 that blocks a molecule in HIV from adhering to the cell surface. Delta 32 must be inherited from both parents; it occurs at a rate of roughly 1 percent in European populations (it's more common in Northern Europe and much much, rarer--basically unheard of--in Africa and Asia), so it was difficult but not impossible for the doctors to find a donor in Germany who fit the bill. The patient was asked to stop taking his antiretroviral AIDS medication for the duration of the procedure with the understanding that he'd have to restart the meds fairly soon after the transplant was complete and the level of the virus in his bloodstream started to rise. But to everyone's surprise, it never rose, not at all. It has now been close to two years since the transplant, and there are still no traces of HIV in the patient's blood or brain tissues. So: success! A cure! For this guy, at least.
Now back to the caveats. A bone marrow transplant is dangerous and painful--it involves wiping out the patient's entire immune system with chemotherapy and radiation and carries a 30 percent mortality rate. The prospect is so daunting that one doctor joked to the New York Times that he'd rather just take antiretrovirals for the rest of his life. It's also not always possible to find a donor who is a good match for the recipient (if the donated cells are not taken from someone with similar human leukocyte antigens, a crucial part of the immune system, they are likely to be rejected or cause severe graft-versus-host disease) and is also happens to be resistant to HIV. This would be particularly tricky in Africa, where the mutation doesn't occur naturally. And carriers of Delta 32 might actually be more susceptible to certain other diseases, like the West Nile virus.
But even though this particular procedure doesn't offer a new standard of care for AIDS patients worldwide, it offers a lot more than just hope (although hope is nice). For one thing, researchers now have a clear path to a cure. If the steps taken by Hutter and Thiel can be refined, simplified, and made less risky, they could become a viable protocol for thousands of other people with AIDS. Eventually, this might entail bone-marrow transplants in which not all of the body's immune cells are killed, or "snipping" the segment of DNA that codes for HIV receptors out out of blood cells and transplanting them into AIDS patients. Eventually, patients' own cells could actually be engineered to resist HIV. These advances are probably decades away, but this breakthrough is confirmation that, once they're made, they could amount to something big.
Want to learn more about breakthroughs in electronics, medicine, nanotech, and more?
Subscribe to Popular Science and enter to win $5,000!
Subscribe to Popular Science and enter to win $5,000!
15 Comments
To comment, please Login.
Download Our iPhone App
Stay up to date on the latest news of the future of science and technology from your iPhone with full articles, images and offline viewing
Follow Us On Twitter
Featuring every article from the magazine and website, plus links from around the Web. Also see our PopSci DIY feed
Become a Fan On Facebook
Share links with friends, comment on stories and more
November 2009: Astronaut 3.0
Inside NASA's astronaut bootcamp and the grueling new training regimen for deep space. Plus, ten young geniuses shaking up science today, one writer's quest to analyze every man-made chemical in her body and more.
Check out the issue's full contents online here
Popular Science Photo Pool
Popular on Popsci
Most Viewed
Science
- Baguette Dropped From Bird's Beak Shuts Down The Large Hadron Collider (Really)
- Hideous Rodent May Provide Cure For Cancer
- Fermi Space Telescope Captures Glimpse of Space-Time
- My Quest To Analyze Every Man-Made Chemical In My Body
- So Just How Tiny Is a Virus?
- Gallery: Where Toxins Come From
- Kissing Evolved To Spread Germs, Not Feelings
- A Material Based on Sharkskin Stops Bacterial Breakouts
- How To Fix a Broken Collider: the LHC's Restart Checklist
- Gray Matter: The Hidden Uses of Everyday Explosives
Most Commented
Science
- Baguette Dropped From Bird's Beak Shuts Down The Large Hadron Collider (Really)
- This Week in the Future, October 26-30, 2009
- Hideous Rodent May Provide Cure For Cancer
- Fermi Space Telescope Captures Glimpse of Space-Time
- This Week in the Future, October 30- November 6, 2009
- Kissing Evolved To Spread Germs, Not Feelings
- My Quest To Analyze Every Man-Made Chemical In My Body
- A Material Based on Sharkskin Stops Bacterial Breakouts
- Mutant Bacteria Are Likely to Threaten Future Space Travelers
- Lawsuit Banning Human Gene Patents Continues, Court Rules
Most Emailed
Science
- My Quest To Analyze Every Man-Made Chemical In My Body
- Kissing Evolved To Spread Germs, Not Feelings
- Fermi Space Telescope Captures Glimpse of Space-Time
- This Week in the Future, October 30- November 6, 2009
- Nanoparticles Can Damage DNA Without Crossing Cellular Barrier
- Mutant Bacteria Are Likely to Threaten Future Space Travelers
- Digital TV Switch A Boon For Astronomers
- Will a Shortage of Nuclear Isotopes Mean Less Effective Medical Tests?
- Baguette Dropped From Bird's Beak Shuts Down The Large Hadron Collider (Really)
- New Genomic Zoo to Collect DNA of 10,000 Vertebrate Species
Today on PopSci.com
Copyright © 2009 Popular Science
A Bonnier Corporation Company. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
from Shawnigan Lake, British Columiba
This was on the news last night but it said that the man had HIV and had rid the virus after undergoing a bone marrow transplant for his treatment for an unrelated acute myeloid leukemia.
He is still under observation because the doctors think that the Virus will rise again.
"http://www.medpagetoday.com/HIVAIDS/HIVAIDS/11780"
"http://www.enews20.com/news_Bone_Marrow_Transplant_Could_Cure_HIV_Study_Shows_14204.html"
"Google news and Canadian Check News"
wow.....
exactly... wow.... i would love to hear more about this if they continue down this path. I have tons of friends that have HIV... this is a nice step forward, even if it is dangerous for now.
This is way too funny. I meant the writing. Forget what the article is about.
Oops. For the nanoshells, google Nanospectra.
Sweet.
They tried this on the old X Men cartoon with Wolverine, and it worked there too. :D
Also in the works:
A very real cure for cancer, now in clinical trials.
Gold nanoshells applied to tumors, hit with infrared light.. able to isolate and destroy cancer even down to the individual cell. 100% successful in mice, zero side effects.
Yeaa, wow indeed. Who would have thought the cure to Aids was so.. 'simple'.. per se. Personaly, thought it would be a lot more complicating than a bone marrow transplant.
Wow, "holy crap" is right! Great article, great story!
See what happens when you tinker? ;)
What if the virus mutates away from the Delta 32 mutation?
The article is very interesting in that it worked. But it's kinda like the prescription medicine commercials in that it ended in "And carriers of Delta 32 might actually be more susceptible to certain other diseases, like the West Nile virus." I guess you trade one good for a bad.
"despite engaging in risky sex with hundreds of partners" brings up all sorts of warning flags.
The problem with aids and other cancer "cures" is that it's a fix for the symptom, not a cure of the root problem. It's like Smokey the Bear and his slogan "Only you can prevent forest fires." Protected sex, education for disease, healthy living are solutions. Not gene therapy. Gene therapy is the daily energy drink in a well balanced meal, diet.
Sometimes I think we should just take off all the warning labels. Let nature sort itself out.
from Clarksville, TN
I thought a cure for this was found last century.
One Cure Method Patent# 5676977
http://patft.uspto.gov
Creation of HIV Patent# 4647773
http://patft.uspto.gov
from Clarksville, TN
I thought a cure for this was found last century.
One Cure Method Patent# 5676977
Creation of HIV Patent# 4647773
..cool
--
child genius?
There are TOO MANY cures - we are just denied access to the info. Here is one:-
Drinking Colloidal Silver - cures Aids - Or so I have heard!
It also cures Swine Flu and all these modern science lab created ailments.
Have a look on eBay or any other site that used to sell this stuff - THEY HAVE ALL BEEN TAKEN OFF - only in the last 6 months.
Make your own silver colloidal water (details all over the net/web)
The simplest way is to place a silver item of jewellery (forget the purity - purer is better - but only slightly)
In a litre of water for at least 24 hours - then drink a sip of it a few times a day - or - half a glass - once a day! leave the item in the water and keep topping it up!
This is safe enough to put into a Just-born child's eyes!
They threw tons of raw sewage water with every known germ/bacteria into a swimming pool and treated it with colloidal water - 3 days later - all the germs were dead.
This experiment has been repeated many many times - in many countries - just google it - get the info for yourself!
Why do you think a King's family was safe from the plagues?
cos they used SILVER utensils! - "Born with a silver spoon in the mouth" - free from desease!
If you try selling this stuff - you may get a knock on your door in the middle of the night - and a short while later - your advert WILL be removed by you - mysteriously!
Disclaimer: - Well, thats what they say ;)
forget a bone marrow transplant, They will do anything they could do to keep the ability to be healthy out of our hands. In 1990 at The Albert Einstein institute of Medical Technology it was re-discovered that a small charge of 50-100 microamperes will alter the outer protein layer of Aids making it unable to attach to your cells anymore it is then flushed out of your body and you resume being healthy. it's called the Bob Beck Protocol and it is so simple to do. This method is good for stopping all kinds of diseases and there are plans available to build your own. taking our freedom back starts with you.
CaL THa RiPPa
i would love to hear more about this if they continue down this path. I have tons of friends that have HIV... this is a nice step forward, even if it is dangerous for now.
www.lipoaspiracao.org