Immune Cells Engineered in Lab to Resist HIV Infection

[Noomz]

Good news for HIV treatment. These kinds of engineered cells and engineered viruses are the way forward to treating many things.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0122101903.htm


Did you also know that they think they could use engineered HIV virus to fight cancer?

[Pilobolus]

It'll definitely be good news once it makes it through the hoops that is animal testing. The big issue with any gene therapy is when the genes "miss" their target location and wind up somewhere else. It looks pretty specific though so hopefully it makes it through.

[Blueobelisk]

Not sure about that HIV fighting cancer part, but those engineered immune cells are very cool. I did sort of a little extra credit project on HIV treatments for my biology class a couple of years back and I never even heard of anything like trying to make engineered immune cells back when I was researching it.

[Mayhem]

didn´t they allready heal someone from HIV in germany a few weeks ago? i was reading something about that...

nevertheless good news i guess, not really a topic i have much knowledge about

[theWocky]

Interesting. They've known since the 90's that certain people are 100% immune to aids - some gene mutation in Europeans they tied to the black death epidemic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCR5

[Blueobelisk]

Interesting. They've known since the 90's that certain people are 100% immune to aids - some gene mutation in Europeans they tied to the black death epidemic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCR5

Ya that's just a mutation in the cell receptors so that the HIV can't land on and infect the targeted cells. That's what I did a little bit of research on lol.

[Deleted]

Sounds neat, Hopefully they'll be able to treat HIV someday. Even though i heard before that someone got rid of it, I guess it isn't the way to go as it isn't really happening much?

[Hiricine]

didn´t they allready heal someone from HIV in germany a few weeks ago? i was reading something about that...

nevertheless good news i guess, not really a topic i have much knowledge about

On that subject, they found some people genetically were very resistant to the virus. Fortunately, someone who didn't have the disease but happened to be one donated some bone marrow that ended up with someone that did have HIV, who stopped showing symptoms. Right now theyre obviously in the early trial phase of that treatment, but its unfortunate they can't get more people involved.

Bone marrow transplants tend to be dangerous and expensive ordeals though, and HIV patients aren't exactly well known for their hardiness or their ability to pay.

[isuridedes]

@Mayhem - Yes he's often called the "Berlin Patient" now and is the topic of a lot of scrutiny. Essentially what they did was treated his Leukemia with a Bone Marrow transplant from a person with the CCR5 mutation that theWocky makes mention of. Since the treatment he's been able to survive without any antiretroviral therapy, and a standard HIV test will show him to be HIV-

The issue however is that if you test his tissue samples you'll find evidence of HIV. He and his doctor make the argument that the HIV remnants in his tissue samples are benign and could not infect anyone, but it's led to a lot of questioning because the whole goal of ARTs is to bring an HIV+ patients viral load to such a low number that the disease is undetectable by standard testing; meaning that if you were an HIV+ patient and you went to a free clinic to get tested they would get a result that said "No, this guy doesn't have HIV"

There is also little practical application in either the CCR5 mutation or this particular treatment. If I recall correctly he developed a series of other (treatable) cancers after the treatment, and the number of people with an HIV resistance is small. It's also quite varied; as the mutation is different in each person with it and some are resistant to some strains of HIV while fully susceptible to others.

[Kraenen]

patent the cells > sell it to people > gain control over their body legally

[Cjeska]

patent the cells > sell it to people > gain control over their body legally

Spread anti gene technology fears > get infected with aids > refuse treatement > die

everybody wins.

[Starving Artist]

Did you also know that they think they could use engineered HIV virus to fight cancer?

If they could kill cancer with a virus it would be the greatest feat of all time ....beyond flight,cars,antibiotics,electrcity.....anything humans had done so far would pale ....humans would become nearly immortal .

[Reeve]

On that subject, they found some people genetically were very resistant to the virus. Fortunately, someone who didn't have the disease but happened to be one donated some bone marrow that ended up with someone that did have HIV, who stopped showing symptoms. Right now theyre obviously in the early trial phase of that treatment, but its unfortunate they can't get more people involved.

Bone marrow transplants tend to be dangerous and expensive ordeals though, and HIV patients aren't exactly well known for their hardiness or their ability to pay.

Being a bone marrow donor is also very painful, from what I understand. The have to drill your pelvis, and you end up laid up for a few days.

[Darsithis]

patent the cells > sell it to people > gain control over their body legally

What? Ridiculous.

I'd love to see this come out in my lifetime and cure my HIV.

[Puremallace]

Interesting. They've known since the 90's that certain people are 100% immune to aids - some gene mutation in Europeans they tied to the black death epidemic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCR5

cough cough some AIDS meds are 40$ a pill when they first came out cough cough

Capitalism mixed with medicine is a fucking bane on our society and we will be looked back on in history as the people who lets millions die to make a dollar.

[Reeve]

Even if I knew I had the CCR5 gene or whatever, I still wouldn't change my sexual behaviors, because I wouldn't want to take the chance of something screwing up and having to live with HIV the rest of my life.

[Spectral]

cough cough some AIDS meds are 40$ a pill when they first came out cough cough

So, the conspiracy is that scientists have a way to magically alter people's CCR5 phenotypes, but choose not to because there's money to be made on drug cocktails? Yeah... no.

Capitalism mixed with medicine is a fucking bane on our society and we will be looked back on in history as the people who lets millions die to make a dollar.

On the contrary, the best thing in the world for biomedical research is the combined public and private system the United States (and other countries) have in which billions are spent on public research that doesn't have profit motive and billions are spent on private research that does have profit motive. You can't good intentions your way into treatments, people need actual incentives to invest in technology.

[Rukentuts]

So, the conspiracy is that scientists have a way to magically alter people's CCR5 phenotypes, but choose not to because there's money to be made on drug cocktails? Yeah... no.

I don't get it either. The USA's patent system is a goldmine when it comes to new medications and treatments.

[Spectral]

I don't get it either. The USA's patent system is a goldmine when it comes to new medications and treatments.

Indeed, the idea that there's an evil cabal that stops good drugs from coming to market relies on the idea that there's no effective competition. That's... not true.

[Deleted]

Kinda surprised that it's taken this long though since there's been documented persons being immune to HIV through some natural gene-mutation (superrare though I guess), unless ofcourse those persons haven't agreed to have had tests taken or whatever so scientists could "take a closer look" as to what made that person immune to it and then try to re-produce those cells.

Admittedly I don't read a lot about how it's going for science in this deparment so I might have missed a lot of steps so please don't kill me if I put false info here and I apologize if I did.