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Man appears free of HIV after stem cell transplant

Kernel Sanders

Norville Rogers
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Source [CNN | Man appears free of HIV after stem cell transplant]

A 42-year-old HIV patient with leukemia appears to have no detectable HIV in his blood and no symptoms after a stem cell transplant from a donor carrying a gene mutation that confers natural resistance to the virus that causes AIDS, according to a report published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

[...]

"The patient is fine," said Dr. Gero Hutter of Charite Universitatsmedizin Berlin in Germany. "Today, two years after his transplantation, he is still without any signs of HIV disease and without antiretroviral medication."

The case was first reported in November, and the new report is the first official publication of the case in a medical journal. Hutter and a team of medical professionals performed the stem cell transplant on the patient, an American living in Germany, to treat the man's leukemia, not the HIV itself.

However, the team deliberately chose a compatible donor who has a naturally occurring gene mutation that confers resistance to HIV. The mutation cripples a receptor known as CCR5, which is normally found on the surface of T cells, the type of immune system cells attacked by HIV.

[...]

While promising, the treatment is unlikely to help the vast majority of people infected with HIV, said Dr. Jay Levy, a professor at the University of California San Francisco, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study. A stem cell transplant is too extreme and too dangerous to be used as a routine treatment, he said.

"About a third of the people die [during such transplants], so it's just too much of a risk," Levy said. To perform a stem cell transplant, doctors intentionally destroy a patient's immune system, leaving the patient vulnerable to infection, and then reintroduce a donor's stem cells (which are from either bone marrow or blood) in an effort to establish a new, healthy immune system.

Levy also said it's unlikely that the transplant truly cured the patient in this study. HIV can infect many other types of cells and may be hiding out in the patient's body to resurface at a later time, he said.
 
Hmmmmm. Sounds promising.
 
Wow, this is excellent. The potential is there.
 
That's fantastic news.

I'm glad that people started to wisen to this
 
While promising, the treatment is unlikely to help the vast majority of people infected with HIV, said Dr. Jay Levy, a professor at the University of California San Francisco, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study. A stem cell transplant is too extreme and too dangerous to be used as a routine treatment, he said.

"About a third of the people die [during such transplants], so it's just too much of a risk," Levy said. To perform a stem cell transplant, doctors intentionally destroy a patient's immune system, leaving the patient vulnerable to infection, and then reintroduce a donor's stem cells (which are from either bone marrow or blood) in an effort to establish a new, healthy immune system.

Levy also said it's unlikely that the transplant truly cured the patient in this study. HIV can infect many other types of cells and may be hiding out in the patient's body to resurface at a later time, he said.
Looks like several people failed to read everything. What potential, what everyone cheering about?
 
Looks like several people failed to read everything. What potential, what everyone cheering about?

You're missing the point.

Apparently, transplanting stem cells is risky business. However even there is promising results from the transplanting of stem cells, then there is only the matter of tweaking it around.
I remember reading a few years ago an article that talked how a certain type of treatment dramatically reduced the growth rate of Cancers in HUMAN patients; the hype was really high, however nothing really came out of the treatment why? Because people expect good results to automatically transform into in-practice treatment methods that work all the time. That just is not possible. Projects even with the best of results, or the worst of results, are always built upon and built upon and built upon and built upon.
 
You're missing the point.

Apparently, transplanting stem cells is risky business. However even there is promising results from the transplanting of stem cells, then there is only the matter of tweaking it around.
I remember reading a few years ago an article that talked how a certain type of treatment dramatically reduced the growth rate of Cancers in HUMAN patients; the hype was really high, however nothing really came out of the treatment why? Because people expect good results to automatically transform into in-practice treatment methods that work all the time. That just is not possible. Projects even with the best of results, or the worst of results, are always built upon and built upon and built upon and built upon.
I'm not against stem cell research, but I am against the rabid insistance by liberals that embryonic stem cell research is the best and only way to achieve cures. It's just another cover for abortion. Don't tell me it's not true, because the left extremists don't pump up the success of adult stem cell research. Nevertheless, the man plainly stated that this is extremely risky with little proven benefit. One patient doesn't prove the success of a process.
 
I'm not against stem cell research, but I am against the rabid insistance by liberals that embryonic stem cell research is the best and only way to achieve cures. It's just another cover for abortion. Don't tell me it's not true, because the left extremists don't pump up the success of adult stem cell research. Nevertheless, the man plainly stated that this is extremely risky with little proven benefit. One patient doesn't prove the success of a process.

Dude, really?

Why did you bring "liberals" and "left extremists" into this?

You label too much.
I am for stem cell research, and against (most) abortions. I am liberal-leaning.
 
Before we perfected the techniques involved, anything nuclear was dangerous before they became much safer. The same could be said for automobiles or glow-in-the-dark paint.
"Let's remain ignorant because bad things could happen even though we haven't perfected the techniques."
 
This is what I do for a living. I am a laboratory technologist for a Blood and Bone Marrow Cell Processing Laboratory. We do immune-system stem cell transplants to treat people with leukemia, some cancers, and more recently myeloma. To put it all in simple terms, it reboots the immune system.

First, I have to point out that this has nothing to do with abortion because the cells are taken from living people (out of the womb only). In some cases, we use cord blood, but even that is taken after the birth has happened.

Next, this is a promising treatment for HIV as a last resort only. The conditioning required for a cell transplant is extensive and can be dangerous itself in the long run. This does, however, open the door to possible new treatments that are more mild. Now they know extensive conditioning may erase the virus, they can start work on finding related methods that are not as harsh.
 
I'm not against stem cell research, but I am against the rabid insistance by liberals that embryonic stem cell research is the best and only way to achieve cures. It's just another cover for abortion. Don't tell me it's not true, because the left extremists don't pump up the success of adult stem cell research. Nevertheless, the man plainly stated that this is extremely risky with little proven benefit. One patient doesn't prove the success of a process.

This was not done with embryonic stem cells. Anybody lauding this advancement is clearly not in the group you are attacking
 
Dude, really?

Why did you bring "liberals" and "left extremists" into this?

You label too much.
I am for stem cell research, and against (most) abortions. I am liberal-leaning.
Proving my point once again. :lol: You labeled yourself Independent. :mrgreen:
 
I agree that risky procedures should be left for the truly desperate and needy, but the fact that this procedure exists at all is a huge achievement for modern medical science. Over time, research will refine the process and reduce the risk. The fact that it is very risky now is irrelevant to future advancement.

Stem cell therapy is the future for many of today's crippling illnesses. Special interest groups will continue to lobby government to ban it, but in a world where cancer rates are rising steadily, research will continue unabated.
 
Proving my point once again. :lol: You labeled yourself Independent. :mrgreen:

You are able to list EITHER your political lean OR your party affiliation. It could very simply be he's a left leaning person registered "Independent", much like currently I'm an almost fully right leaning person registered "Independent" due to disgust with the republican party. I chose to do my political lean, he chose to do his party identification if that's the case.

Slightly Liberal or Slightly Conservative generally can very easily fit into being considered "Independent" or "centrist" as generally they have a few views verging closer to the other side than their own and may be more easily persuaded to vote the other way.

Not to mention, he didn't prove your point. You said:

"the left extremists don't pump up the success of adult stem cell research."

Then apparently he's not one of these, and you're just ranting for rantings sake, because from what I can see this is about adult, not embryonic, stem cells. So he IS pumping up the success of adult stem cell research. His stated stance on abortion is also seemingly only for it in specific instances, which hardly seems like the view of someone wanting to make embryonic stem cell research legal REALLy due to abortions.
 
Stem cell therapy is the future for many of today's crippling illnesses. Special interest groups will continue to lobby government to ban it, but in a world where cancer rates are rising steadily, research will continue unabated.

This is the same tired partisan crap being repeated ad nausea by intellectually dishonest fools.

Speciali interests are not opposed to stem cell research. Some interest groups do oppose one specific type of stem cell research that requires the destruction of human embryoes. And this opposition evaporates when such research is conducted without destroying embryoes, i.e., involves collectng embryonic stem cells from cord blood or reprogramming adult stem cells to behave as embryonic stem cells.

So, please, try to be a little more careful with your broad declarations about who is opposed to what. Otherwise, you end up posting statements like the above which are not at all accurate and, most likely, are intentionally misleading, i.e., Republicans are anti-science.
 
You are able to list EITHER your political lean OR your party affiliation. It could very simply be he's a left leaning person registered "Independent", much like currently I'm an almost fully right leaning person registered "Independent" due to disgust with the republican party. I chose to do my political lean, he chose to do his party identification if that's the case.

Slightly Liberal or Slightly Conservative generally can very easily fit into being considered "Independent" or "centrist" as generally they have a few views verging closer to the other side than their own and may be more easily persuaded to vote the other way.

Not to mention, he didn't prove your point. You said:

"the left extremists don't pump up the success of adult stem cell research."

Then apparently he's not one of these, and you're just ranting for rantings sake, because from what I can see this is about adult, not embryonic, stem cells. So he IS pumping up the success of adult stem cell research. His stated stance on abortion is also seemingly only for it in specific instances, which hardly seems like the view of someone wanting to make embryonic stem cell research legal REALLy due to abortions.
You really need a better avatar.
 
Do we yet have an answer yet to what this poster was talking about?

Obviously he is speaking about people accepting the benefits or potential of stem cell research.
 
I think the main issue here is that when we bring up "stem cells" in a discussion many automatically think "embryonic". The news outlets have been fairly quite on "adult" stem cells which come from cord blood or bone marrow out of fully grown adults. In one case there was a woman from China who was temporarily healed of paralysis through adult stem cells being used in a spinal procedure. To date, adult stem cell research has made some huge leaps in possible cures for major diseases while not being a partisan issue.

In the future it might be best to be more specific on the type of cells used when discussing this issue. "Embryonic" stem cells are a very partisan issue.
 
Obviously he is speaking about people accepting the benefits or potential of stem cell research.

Who doesn't accept the benefits of such research?

Maybe you mean that he meant that people are wising up to the benefits of such research? That's what I thought. But what does that really mean? Who is he talking about?

I suspect that he's talking about those who oppose ESCR that relies on destroying embryoes. This instance of stem cell treatment doesn't address the argument about such ESCR.

So who is he referring to?

I think it was American that was criticized for bringing left/right politics into this thread, but I would contend, unless AA responds, that AA was the first.
 
I think the main issue here is that when we bring up "stem cells" in a discussion many automatically think "embryonic". The news outlets have been fairly quite on "adult" stem cells which come from cord blood or bone marrow out of fully grown adults. In one case there was a woman from China who was temporarily healed of paralysis through adult stem cells being used in a spinal procedure. To date, adult stem cell research has made some huge leaps in possible cures for major diseases while not being a partisan issue.

In the future it might be best to be more specific on the type of cells used when discussing this issue. "Embryonic" stem cells are a very partisan issue.

1) Adult stem cells normally are not culled from cord blood. Embryonic stem cells are.

2) Adult stem cell research has been the only stem cell research to yield any treatments to date. I think the first embryonic stem cell treatment just entered trials and, interestingly enough, that treatment was not derived from ESCR relying on the destruction of embryoes.

3) Adult stem cell research doesn't have the partisan disagreement that embryonic stem cells do because the adult stem cells don't have the associated moral and ethical implications that embryo-destroying ESCR does.

Just sayin...not criticizing you.
 
1) Adult stem cells normally are not culled from cord blood. Embryonic stem cells are.

2) Adult stem cell research has been the only stem cell research to yield any treatments to date. I think the first embryonic stem cell treatment just entered trials and, interestingly enough, that treatment was not derived from ESCR relying on the destruction of embryoes.

3) Adult stem cell research doesn't have the partisan disagreement that embryonic stem cells do because the adult stem cells don't have the associated moral and ethical implications that embryo-destroying ESCR does.

Just sayin...not criticizing you.

Immune system stem cells are harvested from cord blood and they are the same as adult stem cells from bone marrow or peripheral blood.
 
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