Cure: No Longer a Four-Letter Word in the Fight Against HIV

A diagnosis of HIV/AIDS used to mean nothing short of a death sentence.  More recently, with the development of effective antiviral drugs, it has meant something closer to a lifelong, chronic illness.  Now there is new hope in the possibility of a cure.  Two main approaches to curing HIV have demonstrated recent success: the sterilizing cure and the functional cure.  While the former focuses on eradication of the virus from the body, the latter allows the patient to remain healthy without antiviral drugs, although it does not eliminate the virus.  

Timothy Brown is an example of the sterilizing cure’s success.  Brown, who had both HIV and leukemia, has been living virus-free for almost four years after undergoing two bone-marrow transplants to treat his cancer.  While living in Berlin in 2007 and 2008, Brown received bone marrow from a donor among the 1 percent of Northern Europeans who are naturally resistant to HIV infection because they lack CCR5, a protein on the surface of immune cells that the virus uses to enter the body.  Although Brown’s recovery is astounding, experts worry that replicating his results would not be feasible for many patients because of the high cost and risk associated with bone marrow transplants.  Furthermore, they point out that it would be next to impossible to find not only immunologically matching donors, but also ones with the CCR5 mutation.  

The difficulties associated with a sterilizing cure such as Brown’s have prompted scientists to explore functional cures.  For example, researchers are working on eliminating CCR5 in patients’ own immune cells, making them resistant to infection.  The case of the “Trenton Patient” has led to further optimism that functional cure may be possible.  Although he wished to remain anonymous in the press, the Trenton Patient shared his remarkable story, claiming he “felt like Superman” after his treatment.  As part of an experimental trial, doctors removed white blood cells from his body and treated them with a gene therapy developed by Sangamo BioSciences in order to create proteins that would interfere with CCR5 genes.  The treated cells were then injected into the patient’s body and he went off his antiviral medication.  Although the amount of HIV in his blood rose initially, by the end of the twelve week trial period, it had dropped to an undetectable level.  While the Trenton Patient’s results are amazing, five other patients involved in a similar study did not fair so well.  

Despite the fact that both Timothy Brown and the Trenton Patient’s cases represent results that could not likely be replicated in large numbers of patients, their triumphs have renewed hope that a cure to HIV/AIDS is on the horizon.  “‘It’s hard to understate how the scientific community has swung in thinking about the possibility that we can do this,’ said Kevin Frost, chief executive of the Foundation for Aids Research, a nonprofit group.  ‘Cure, in the context of H.I.V., had become almost a four-letter word.’”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/29/health/new-hope-of-a-cure-for-hiv.html?pagewanted=all

World AIDS Day Candlelight Memorial Vigil in Asheville

Join the Western North Carolina AIDS Project and World Camp for a candlelight vigil in Pack Square on December 1st from 7-9 pm.  
Be sure to visit the 2011 AIDS Memorial Quilt, which is on display from today through December 3rd at the Pack Place Pavilion.  For more information, please visit:
http://www.wncap.org/wad/