• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Merged Berlin Patient, HIV cure?

OneShotKi11

Muse
O
Joined
Nov 2, 2007
Messages
789
I couldnt think of a better place to come to find some answers.

Now to keep things brief, the term "Berlin Patient" when typed into Google will return alot of results on a story of a German man who supposedly is "cured" of the HIV virus. This comes as amazing news to me, and with that news i went on the search for articles to confirm it. Yet, the more i search the more i am confused. I seem to be finding articles about the "Berlin Patient" from 2008, 2007, and even as far back as 1998. All of which seem to have a similar story.

A man was diagnosed with HIV in a given year (2008, 2007, 2006, 1996) has been taking anti-HIV drugs for 2 years, and somehow it has stopped the virus (or suppressed it).

New York Times:1998
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/21/magazine/the-berlin-patient.html?pagewanted=1

Yet, the most recent version of the story i am hearing about mentions the man being cured by Stem cells from individuals who are immune to the HIV virus.

All i want to do if have a confirmation on the story.
 
OneShotKi11 said:
I couldnt think of a better place to come to find some answers.

Now to keep things brief, the term "Berlin Patient" when typed into Google will return alot of results on a story of a German man who supposedly is "cured" of the HIV virus. This comes as amazing news to me, and with that news i went on the search for articles to confirm it. Yet, the more i search the more i am confused. I seem to be finding articles about the "Berlin Patient" from 2008, 2007, and even as far back as 1998. All of which seem to have a similar story.

A man was diagnosed with HIV in a given year (2008, 2007, 2006, 1996) has been taking anti-HIV drugs for 2 years, and somehow it has stopped the virus (or suppressed it).

New York Times:1998
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/21/magazine/the-berlin-patient.html?pagewanted=1

Yet, the most recent version of the story i am hearing about mentions the man being cured by Stem cells from individuals who are immune to the HIV virus.

All i want to do if have a confirmation on the story.
Click to expand...

Me2.

And links and pubs from the chemist(s), docs and pathology
 
That story is dates back to 1998. Perhaps, the patient wasn't cured as he still harboured the virus and he may be what is now known as an elite controller or long term non-progressor. Or one who has a mutation in the HIV co-receptor (CCR5) that provides some resistance to HIV infection.

The stem cell therapy may work through adoptive transfer of cells from subjects with the CCR5 mutation into HIV+ individuals. I didn't do a thorough search on PubMed but that is where you can and should verify the story.

Maybe it was this one?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19213682
 
Last edited:
I wonder what the circumstances were, it seems like this is an example of HIV being cured.
 
Halfcentaur said:
I wonder what the circumstances were, it seems like this is an example of HIV being cured.
Click to expand...
I could only read the abstract, but it sounds promising. If the transplant was in 2007, and if he is currently free of HIV, that's wonderful. It will be interesting to see if this is followed up with more studies.
 
Halfcentaur said:
I wonder what the circumstances were, it seems like this is an example of HIV being cured.
Click to expand...

As I understand it, the circumstances are as follows:

He was also suffering from leukemia. The treatment for the Leukemia is an extremely expensive and very risky one that destroys your entire immune system, and involves a bone marrow transplant to restore it.

They found a donor who had mutations which made him resistant to HIV, and transplanted his bone marrow into the current patient.

The destruction of the immune system, and the subsequent replacement of it with a HIV-resistant one, managed to remove the virus entirely.

It's a very exciting development, but unfortunately not a practical route for a common cure, yet - the appropriate circumstances are rare (bone marrow matches are difficult to find even without the extra condition of having to find a donor with a rare mutation) and the treatment is very risky as it is, with a nontrivial chance of killing the patient outright.

It may become more feasible when genetic engineering techniques advance to the point where the bone marrow transplant can be done from lab-grown cells rather from a very-hard-to-find donor, but that's a huge huge leap from where we are now.
 
If it's true (ignoring ftl's post for now :)), this sounds like every fundy's nightmare.
 
Essentially the recipient has had replacement with cells containing the delta 32 mutation, which renders cells resistant to infection with CCR5 tropic strains of HIV. So there is no viable reinfection of cells with any residual HIV in this man, and no ongoing replication which is tantamount to a "cure" in his case.

However, he would still be susceptible to infection with CXCR4 tropic strains of HIV.
Also, individuals who have both of the strains (CR5 and X4) could not be cured by stem cell transplant since the X4 tropic strain of virus would continue to replicate unabated.

There is no equivalent stem cell type that could halt infection/replication with X4 virus.
 
This is why i love the JREF!

I knew that someone here would be in the know-how, or atleast point me in the direction i needed to be.

Any other articles and documentation would be greatly appreciated!
 
So as it stands now, for a layman's understanding, there is a cure for HIV? Yes?

If so, how long do you think it will be before people with the virus will be able to receive the sort of treatment necessary to be cured?
 
OneShotKi11 said:
So as it stands now, for a layman's understanding, there is a cure for HIV? Yes?

If so, how long do you think it will be before people with the virus will be able to receive the sort of treatment necessary to be cured?
Click to expand...

Too soon to say. It was only one patient. From the abstract:

In conclusion, our results strongly suggest that cure of HIV has been achieved in this patient.
Click to expand...

link

Here's an interview with another researcher about the finding:

"I'm extremely excited about the result," said Jerome Zack, a researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies HIV infection and was not involved in the study. "It suggests that at least in this one individual, there's a long-term benefit to this approach."
(...)
"You can't eliminate the potential for there still being low-level virus in the body that’s undetectable," he said.
(...)
Ultimately, the results would need to be reproduced before researchers could know whether this was an option for treating HIV, Zack said. And, practically, finding donors would be a challenge — only one percent of Northern Europeans are known to have this particular mutation, Zack said.
(...)
"One can't really claim this is a cure yet," he said.
Click to expand...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40666443/ns/health-aids/
 
Deetee said:
Essentially the recipient has had replacement with cells containing the delta 32 mutation, which renders cells resistant to infection with CCR5 tropic strains of HIV. So there is no viable reinfection of cells with any residual HIV in this man, and no ongoing replication which is tantamount to a "cure" in his case.

However, he would still be susceptible to infection with CXCR4 tropic strains of HIV.
Also, individuals who have both of the strains (CR5 and X4) could not be cured by stem cell transplant since the X4 tropic strain of virus would continue to replicate unabated.

There is no equivalent stem cell type that could halt infection/replication with X4 virus.
Click to expand...

Another limitation is that the patient probably only had infected leukocytes. Patients with AIDS (as opposed to merely HIV+ status) often have other tissues infected in addition to leukocytes. Specifically epithelial cells and neurons.
 
ThunderChunky said:
Another issue is the fact that bone marrow transplants are quite risky.
Click to expand...

I was asking my wife about the risk comparison of one-time transplant operation vs taking antiviral meds for the rest of one's life (mrs blutoski is an MD in an HIV clinic).

She said transplant might actually be less dangerous for young healthy patients.
 
blutoski said:
I was asking my wife about the risk comparison of one-time transplant operation vs taking antiviral meds for the rest of one's life (mrs blutoski is an MD in an HIV clinic).

She said transplant might actually be less dangerous for young healthy patients.
Click to expand...

She could very well be right. Obviously living on antivirals is a significant risk of its own. I would be curious if this type of transplant would still be effective without killing the native marrow. You would still acquire the HIV-resistant cells, but would not have to deal with the effects of radiation or a weakened immune system. If you use the patients own cells, but modified with the CCR5 deletion, you might eliminate graft vs host risks as well.
 
OneShotKi11 said:
So as it stands now, for a layman's understanding, there is a cure for HIV? Yes?

If so, how long do you think it will be before people with the virus will be able to receive the sort of treatment necessary to be cured?
Click to expand...

A long time: CCR5 deletion mutation and its association with the risk of developing acute graft-versus-host disease after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Graft vs host disease means the transplanted cells reject the new body the same way an organ is rejected in some transplant recipients.

Graft vs host disease can be managed, but you'd just be trading anti-retrovirals for immune suppressant drug regimens.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom