Man appears free of HIV after stem cell transplant

[240 is Back]

Are you for, or against, stem-cell research?

Would you object to stem-sell research if it could eradicate HIV in the world within five years?


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 underwent a stem cell transplant and since, has not tested positive for HIV in his blood.

 "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.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/02/11/health.hiv.stemcell/

[240 is Back]

If you oppose it, look at this picture.  Remember there are 30 miillion people in Africa with HIV - many of them children.

Now answer the question.

[tu_holmes]

I've always been for it... but this is just fantastic news

[240 is Back]

I've always been for it... but this is just fantastic news

Same here.  The surgery is a risky one, and not yet cost-feasible. 

But once you have dollar signs and 'save the world' thoughts in the minds of millions of researchers and doctors worldwide, it'll just be a matter of time until these logistical problems are overcome.

We really may see a cure for HIV in our lifetime.  Unbelievable.

[BayGBM]

This is truly stunning news!  I wrote about the CCR5 delta32 mutation and its implication for HIV treatments/vaccines here back in 2007.
http://www.getbig.com/boards/index.php?topic=133463.msg1889091#msg1889091

I do not yet think this is cause to get excited; I remain cautiously optimistic.

I have always been a proponent of stem cell research--even the kind that destroys embryos that are a couple weeks old.

[Hugo Chavez]

I thought they didn't even have to mess with embryos now to do stem cell stuff?   Why would anyone have a reason to be against it now?  I mean besides for those who want to see the world depopulated as much as possible.

[Cap]

1. People are meant to die

2.  If a country wants to fund it on their own, that's fine but WE don't have 30 million dying of AIDS.  Let those countries deal with it themselves.  We have enough problems to deal with here without trying to solve everyone elses problems.

[BayGBM]

I thought they didn't even have to mess with embryos now to do stem cell stuff?   Why would anyone have a reason to be against it now?  I mean besides for those who want to see the world depopulated as much as possible.

Wrong.  There are different kinds of stem cells.  Embryonic stem cells (the ones culled form newly formed embryos) are the most versatile, potent, and useful in research.

[Hugo Chavez]

1. People are meant to die

2.  If a country wants to fund it on their own, that's fine but WE don't have 30 million dying of AIDS.  Let those countries deal with it themselves.  We have enough problems to deal with here without trying to solve everyone elses problems.

dude, think of all the new debauchery we'd see in porn with all those worries gone.  what the hell is wrong with you man

[BayGBM]

1. People are meant to die

2.  If a country wants to fund it on their own, that's fine but WE don't have 30 million dying of AIDS.  Let those countries deal with it themselves.  We have enough problems to deal with here without trying to solve everyone elses problems.

Shall we all take a guess at how many degrees this poster has?

[MB_722]

mean besides for those who want to see the world depopulated as much as possible.

as I was reading 240s post, had the same thought 

[Hugo Chavez]

Wrong.  There are different kinds of stem cells.  Embryonic stem cells (the ones culled form newly formed embryos) are the most versatile, potent, and useful in research.

looks like they're advancing pretty fast toward it tho.


January 2007 - Scientists at Wake Forest University led by Dr. Anthony Atala and Harvard University report discovery of a new type of stem cell in amniotic fluid.[39] This may potentially provide an alternative to embryonic stem cells for use in research and therapy.[40]

June 2007 - Research reported by three different groups shows that normal skin cells can be reprogrammed to an embryonic state in mice.[41] In the same month, scientist Shoukhrat Mitalipov reports the first successful creation of a primate stem cell line through somatic cell nuclear transfer[42]

October 2007 - Mario Capecchi, Martin Evans, and Oliver Smithies win the 2007 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for their work on embryonic stem cells from mice using gene targeting strategies producing genetically engineered mice (known as knockout mice) for gene research.[43]

November 2007 - Human Induced pluripotent stem cells: Two similar papers released by their respective journals prior to formal publication: in Cell by Kazutoshi Takahashi and Shinya Yamanaka, "Induction of Pluripotent Stem Cells from Adult Human Fibroblasts by Defined Factors",[44] and in Science by Junying Yu, et al., from the research group of James Thomson, "Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Lines Derived from Human Somatic Cells":[45] pluripotent stem cells generated from mature human fibroblasts. It is possible now to produce a stem cell from almost any other human cell instead of using embryos as needed previously, albeit the risk of tumorigenesis due to c-myc and retroviral gene transfer remains to be determined.

January 2008 - Robert Lanza and colleagues at Advanced Cell Technology and UCSF create the first human embryonic stem cells without destruction of the embryo[46]

January 2008 - Development of human cloned blastocysts following somatic cell nuclear transfer with adult fibroblasts[47]
February 2008 - Generation of Pluripotent Stem Cells from Adult Mouse Liver and Stomach: these iPS cells seem to be more similar to embryonic stem cells than the previous developed iPS cells and not tumorigenic, moreover genes that are required for iPS cells do not need to be inserted into specific sites, which encourages the development of non-viral reprogramming techniques. [48][49]

March 2008-The first published study of successful cartilage regeneration in the human knee using autologous adult mesenchymal stem cells is published by Clinicians from Regenerative Sciences[50]

October 2008 - Sabine Conrad and colleagues at Tübingen, Germany generate pluripotent stem cells from spermatogonial cells of adult human testis by culturing the cells in vitro under leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) supplementation. [51]

October 2008 - Embryonic-like stem cells from a single human hair.[52]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell#Key_research_events

[Hugo Chavez]

Shall we all take a guess at how many degrees this poster has?

33

[Cap]

dude, think of all the new debauchery we'd see in porn with all those worries gone.  what the hell is wrong with you man

Haha...MORE SASHA GREY!  And it's only 31 degrees....geez.   

Seriously, I guarantee the people backing this are expecting the US to dump billions into Africa to solve their problems but I think that would be stupid.  Wouldn't it be better to isolate it and start over, at least in Africa?

Shall we all take a guess at how many degrees this poster has?

Gee, I guess we can all wonder why you would be okay with this huh Bay?

[BayGBM]

Haha...MORE SASHA GREY!  And it's only 31 degrees....geez.   

Seriously, I guarantee the people backing this are expecting the US to dump billions into Africa to solve their problems but I think that would be stupid.  Wouldn't it be better to isolate it and start over, at least in Africa?
 Gee, I guess we can all wonder why you would be okay with this huh Bay?

The good news (for both of us) is getbig is probably the only place where someone like you will ever have cause to interact with someone like me.  I truly hope you find the measure of happiness in life that your level of thinking allows.

[Cap]

The good news (for both of us) is getbig is probably the only place where someone like you will ever have cause to interact with someone like me.  I truly hope you find the measure of happiness in life that your level of thinking allows.

Nope, I have plenty of people who share my opinions.  I'm happy thinking my way because 1.) it works for me, 2.) I believe it, 3.) curing all the world's problems is not the purpose of the US.

[Hugo Chavez]

Nope, I have plenty of people who share my opinions.  I'm happy thinking my way because 1.) it works for me, 2.) I believe it, 3.) curing all the world's problems is not the purpose of the US.

well, it's not just about AIDs either.  So many could be saved or have their pain releaved and live a normal life.  It's not about living forever and someday it might be about saving someone you love.  240 just used africa as an example.  There are countless uses.  The same agrument you make could have been made for most past medical advances.

[Cap]

well, it's not just about AIDs either.  So many could be saved or have their pain releaved and live a normal life.  It's not about living forever and someday it might be about saving someone you love.  240 just used africa as an example.  There are countless uses.  The same agrument you make could have been made for most past medical advances.

True, but in this case it's AIDS.  My opinion may mean little to people making policy but I think stem cells are a mixed blessing.  Everyone is entitled their own opinion but with regards to AIDS I think we'd end up doing WAY more than just helping people in this country.

[tu_holmes]

True, but in this case it's AIDS.  My opinion may mean little to people making policy but I think stem cells are a mixed blessing.  Everyone is entitled their own opinion but with regards to AIDS I think we'd end up doing WAY more than just helping people in this country.

Glad they didn't think of Polio like you think of AIDS.

[240 is Back]

curing all the world's problems is not the purpose of the US.

one million americans are HIV+.

You don't think saving a million american lives is a good thing?

[Dan-O]

Glad they didn't think of Polio like you think of AIDS.

  Oh brother...

Gee, was polio ever a sexually transmitted disease?  What a lame comparison.  The only innocent victims of AIDS are the kids who are born with it through no fault of their own because of their parents' carelessness and/or ignorance.  And those who have been transfused with tainted blood.  Remember the dentist who deliberately infected his patients just to "prove" that AIDS wasn't "just a gay disease?"

If there was as much hoopla about heart disease or cancer (which affect a FAR greater number of people than AIDS) as there is about AIDS, they'd probably have been cured by now.  AIDS AIDS AIDS, blah blah blah.  That being said...  hey, if there's a potential cure found, then that's great.

Listen, I know AIDS is a dreadful, horrible disease that I wouldn't wish on anyone.  It just kinda rankles me to see it getting sooo much attention when it's far from the worst health issue facing people in the US especially.  There are so many other critical issues where we could be getting more bang for our buck.

[tu_holmes]

  Oh brother...

Gee, was polio ever a sexually transmitted disease?  What a lame comparison.  The only innocent victims of AIDS are the kids who are born with it through no fault of their own because of their parents' carelessness and/or ignorance.  And those who have been transfused with tainted blood.  Remember the dentist who deliberately infected his patients just to "prove" that AIDS wasn't "just a gay disease?"

If there was as much hoopla about heart disease or cancer (which affect a FAR greater number of people than AIDS) as there is about AIDS, they'd probably have been cured by now.  AIDS AIDS AIDS, blah blah blah.  That being said...  hey, if there's a potential cure found, then that's great.

Listen, I know AIDS is a dreadful, horrible disease that I wouldn't wish on anyone.  It just kinda rankles me to see it getting sooo much attention when it's far from the worst health issue facing people in the US especially.  There are so many other critical issues where we could be getting more bang for our buck.

But it is a problem to HUMANS around the world... This isn't about the US.

[Eyeball Chambers]

curing all the world's problems is not the purpose of the US.

I thought you supported Operation Iraqi Freedom? 

[Fury]

Are you for, or against, stem-cell research?

Would you object to stem-sell research if it could eradicate HIV in the world within five years?


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 underwent a stem cell transplant and since, has not tested positive for HIV in his blood.

 "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.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/02/11/health.hiv.stemcell/

Of course I'm for it. Religion should not get in the way of scientific progress. The potential advances in medicine and technology with stem cells are almost limitless.

[Cap]

I thought you supported Operation Iraqi Freedom? 

There were two reasons for that and curing the worlds problems wasn't one of them.  I don't see the US as needing to go into Africa and dump a bunch of money into a problem that they could do themselves with other methods.