HIV-Positive Man Cured by Stem Cell Transplant


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Doctors believe a 42-year-old man was cured of HIV after receiving a stem cell transplant in 2007, the medical journal Blood reported.

Timothy Ray Brown, an HIV-positive American living in Germany, had leukemia and was undergoing chemotherapy, when he received a transplant of stem cells from a donor carrying a rare, inherited gene mutation associated with a reduced risk HIV.

The transplant appeared to wipe out both diseases, giving hope to doctors. Brown?s case was published in a February 2009 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

"The patient is fine," Dr. Gero Hutter, who treated Brown, of Charite Universitatsmedizin Berlin in Germany said in 2009. "Today, two years after his transplantation, he is still without any signs of HIV disease and without antiretroviral medication."

The gene mutation is known as CCR5 delta32 homozygosity, and is found in 1 percent to 3 percent of white populations of European descent.

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Awesome! (Y)

Heard about that a couple of times on German TV, definitely a good thing!

Push it I say! :)

Glassed Silver:mac

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Hopefully they'd expand on this cure and shut the anti-gay bigots up for once and for all.

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Stem cells have an endless possibility in regards to medicinal advances. Stem cell research definitely needs more funding and restrictions on the research done away with. I keep hearing unfortunate sentiment that stem cell research isn't what scientists were touting it to be. However, these individuals fail to realize that stem cell research (at least within the United States) is heavily restricted (these restrictions put in place by the George W. Bush Administration if I remember correctly). Research is difficult when you are limited to what you can do, which stem cells you can use, how you are allowed to gather the stem cells, as well as many other restrictions. I'm sure it's like learning to dance in a full body cast.

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