HIV- No longer a life sentence
By Gemma Filia
"Going into hospital with HIV and receiving a single treatment that knocks the virus on the head for good" may no longer be an illusion for the 33 million sufferers worldwide, according researchers at the Sangamo Biosciences of Richmond, California. Extensive progress in the field of gene therapy has allowed this remarkable discovery to occur which would effectively cure people of HIV, instead of keeping the virus in check with the use of antiretroviral therapies (ART).
This news follows the story of a German man who last week was reported to be free of HIV after a successful bone marrow transplant two years ago. This was made possible by the donor, who was identified as having two copies of a gene which prevented HIV from invading the white blood cells.
In other news, researchers have revealed that they are working on utilizing gene therapies to alter the white blood cells so they are resistant to HIV. This process would be more effective than the transplants described, as finding the right person with the right genome can be very rare.
Philip Gregory of Sangamo Biosciences tested HIV infected mice with this new therapy and found that even though the mice still contained some infected CD4 white blood cells, the replication rate of the engineered HIV free cells caused them to become the dominant CD4 cells. The first human trial was set to begin about a month ago.
So until the results are revealed, the best possible option for HIV sufferers is ART however it appears a new frontier in the fight against infectious diseases might just be closer than we think.
To read full article go to http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126964.400-gene-therapy-promises-oneshot-treatment-for-hiv.html?full=true
