Boards
Man is cured of AIDS and cancer...
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/850620-cancer-patient-is-cured-of-hiv-virus
Well okay, not exactly cured of cancer but blimey. This is pretty amazing stuff, yeah?
-----------------------------------
Timothy Brown, 44, had a blood stem cell transplant in 2007 to beat leukaemia. Three years later, doctors can find no trace of HIV – and his cancer is in remission.
‘Our results strongly suggest that the cure of HIV has been achieved in this patient,’ specialists wrote in the US journal, Blood.
Brown, a US citizen living in Berlin, contracted the virus in 1995 and in 2006 developed leukaemia, a cancer that affects white blood cells.
His stem cell donor had a natural genetic immunity to HIV – something only about 1 in 1,000 Europeans and Americans have.
Now, Mr Brown, who has quit his antiviral drugs, is enjoying a normal life and considering a move to Barcelona or San Francisco. His consultant Dr Gero Hütter said: ‘This is the greatest thing one can achieve in medical research.’
When the case first surfaced two years ago, experts said stem-cell transplants were too dangerous and expensive for HIV patients but Prof Andrew Sewell, of Cardiff University, told Metro it offers a chance to develop drugs using gene therapy.
Last year, about 86,500 people in Britain were living with HIV – a three-fold increase since 2000.