I’ve posted on this story a few times in the last two years (here and here) and now it’s back in the news. In 2008 an American with HIV living in Berlin seemed to have been cured of the disease after receiving a bone marrow transplant to treat his leukemia. Now the identity of that American has been made known and a new report has been published claiming that there is evidence in this patient for a “cure” for HIV infection using the selective adult stem cell transplant. This is exciting news, to say the least, but Dr. Prentice warns:
The published evidence seems sound, but caution should be exercised. This is not a gentle procedure. Moreover, it relies on finding a bone marrow adult stem cell donor with the particular mutation, so that their donated cells lack the CCR5 receptor.
In other adult stem cell news, a quadriplegic donkey is walking again thanks to bone marrow from a Thoroughbred racehorse. Dr. Prentice has all the details on that one.
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Even so, transforming an HIV-infected patient to a state where medication is unnecessary would be an enormous achievement, if it could be replicated on a large scale — and the vast majority of the HIV-infected would be quite happy to leave the debate about whether or not this should be called a “cure” to the doctors and scientists.