Cure For AIDS?

This is interesting...

that is an awesome read, click the link and read the entire thing.

Wow. That would be fucking amazing.

It is a good read. If it turns out to be a reliable treatment, the trick will be finding compatible donors with the mutation. In this case, the doctor didn't find one until the 61st sample out of 80. The probabilities aren't very good. Gene manipulation could overcome this.

I look forward to more research on the subject.

WOW!

I wonder if, or how, the genetic mutation relates to how long the virus has been in the human population.

I doubt it; reasearch indicates HIV first entered the human population in 1908. I don't think 100 years is enough time for the virus to have influenced the mutation, particularly since HIV originated in Africa, but the mutation is more prevalent in Europeans.

Most likely a random mutation that either has another benefit or was just neutral until HIV came along.

But, given enough time and us not messing with things, based on accepted theory, you'd eventually see some changes occur.

Edit: I looked it up, and the CCR5 mutation they're talking about dates to before the Bronze Age. It also seems to protect against smallpox.

I seem to recall reading in some medical journal that a few blood samples from European populations dating from as early as the 1920s contained HIV. And, I don't know, given the random and frequent nature of genetic mutations, I don't know that there couldn't be a connection.

I'm not saying that there is; I'm just not sure.


Also, seeing as I'm not a doctor, epidemiologist, or geneticist. Heh.

Very interesting, and yet not a cheap or easily obtained cure without a lot more work.

We can only hope (and support research that is). Thank you for posting this

I'm pretty sure I 've read that the high incidence of natural immunity in northern European populations is that the same mutation confers resistance to plague.

Given that plague was a pretty large selective event, it makes sense that the remaining population would be more likely to have the mutation. It's some kinda psycho luck that the same mutation confers immunity to HIV.

And... I missed what Sick said. Smallpox, I guess? I was pretty sure I'd heard plague.

CCR5 is a protein receptor that HIV attaches to so it can inject itself into a cell. It is protective for HIV and Smallpox and they have theorized that it also protected against the Bubonic Plague. Researchers have known about this receptor for a long time...the problem is that HIV uses not only the CCR5 but also other receptor sites such as CXCR4 and others. HIV is a highly mutating virus that they have been unable to successfully block from entering cells. This article is interesting and I hope it leads farther than other research on the topic has to date. Maybe they have finally come across a treatment that works.....unfortunately, bone marrow transplantation with mutated cells, if it is a cure, will be out of reach for most with the disease

oh and genetic mutations are often disease preventing...
-Sickle Cell Disease...prevents Malaria
-Sickle Cell Trait...protective of Malaria
-Cystic Fibrosis...protective of Cholera

You know, I once thought about the idea of using sickle cell infused blood transfusions for the treatment of other diseases like AIDS or possibly in cancer treatment. If the cells could somehow, safely be used to target specific cells or regions of the body (tumors for instance), I wonder if it might yield positive results. Sure it's bordering on the realm of wacko medical science, but after finding out how sickle cells effect the Malaria virus, it got me thinking... Who knows (any doctors in the house?) Also, there's something I heard about "Duffy antigens" that prevent malaria...

yes there are quite a few things that are protective for malaria..Duffy is a receptor like CCR5....

what you are talking about is not wacko medical science....they are now doing gene therapy where they can insert correct segments of DNA into humans who have hereditary diseases...all using viruses as a vector. It may well be the "cure" for illnesses like diabetes, and Alzheimer's in the future.

Sure, viruses may be the key to providing a cure for many diseases by using their unique vector properties to invade cells with genetic materials, but I'm talking about using the cells themselves (the anemic sickle shaped ones) to actually surround infections and diseased cellular tissue to isolate and "kill" them (the cells), effectively isolating the virus and preventing their further spread from cell to cell. It's all so amazing...

ok yeah I do not think that will work....especially since sickled cells wreak havoc on the human body and infarct out organ systems....and do not cure tumors/viruses....

There was a hypothesis that it protected against plague and the high incidence of the mutation among Europeans is a result of the Black Death. However, it doesn't bear out, because lab experiments show Yersinia pestis* doesn't use CCR5. Furthermore, the frequency of the mutation in Bronze Age samples is similar to that found today, so whatever selected for it happened quite some time before the 14th century.


*Assuming plague caused the Black Death

This is more in the realm of nanotech, but it's unlikely the tech to "train" sickle cell in the ways you describe will happen anytime soon.

Trust me, they'd make way more money out of a cure or - especially - a vaccine.

Let's see, sell treatment to people infected with AIDS who can afford it?

Or sell a vaccine to everyone who plans to have sex?

...not to mention the millions (billions?) that would be easily available through UN deals to vaccinate the underprivileged in the parts of the world most ravaged by AIDS.

The "stopgap earns more than the cure" hypothesis really only works in the first world. Once governments start ponying up money and contracts, it has the potential to make what insurance pays out for the non-cure treatment look like peanuts.

...not to mention that pharmaceutical company researchers aren't the only people working on it. If those damned crazy academics discover a cure, it wouldn't surprise me if they just tell everyone how.

I was going to say the same thing. There's ego involved, here! That's worth more than any corporatesuit's bonus!

The pharmaceutical companies will be the ones holding the cure/vaccine. They are the ones putting money into human trials and getting drugs examined by the FDA...the academics just give the drug companies more ideas on how to build a better drug/vaccine.