Cure for AIDS

Could a disease many claim to be incurable be cured? A man who is forty-two, currently living in Germany was born in the U.S, received a stem cell transplant because he was suffering from both Leukemia and HIV. In a stem cell transplant the immune system is wiped out, with drugs in radiation, the process also wipes out bone marrow. Then a donor with the same blood type, good tissue and a rare genetic mutation blood and bone marrow was inserted into the man with HIV. The process is extremely risky and has a high fatality rate. A very small percentage of the population has a genetic mutation “Delta 32” in which they are unable to get HIV. The donor had this mutation and because of this the aids was not able to continue to attack the white blood cells due to this resistance. It has been 20 months and the man so far still has no signs of having HIV, after it was something he fought with for over a decade. As good as this sounds, many scientists are very skeptical of using a stem cell transplants because of the high fatality rate and cost. Due to the large expense of the procedure it is unrealistic for any third world countries, were aids is the most prominent. However it does give some hope that we may be on our way to curing aids through injection of stem cells, and in the future possible prevention of aids by replicating the mutation “delta 32”.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/health/14hiv.html

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1858843,00.html