Let's hope for the best! A trial has just kicked off aimed at testing the hypothesis that splicing out patient's T-Cells' CCR5 receptors (where HIV binds to the cell) may lead to host immunity. Not only would this provide immunity to those who are HIV-negative, but would in theory also cure people who are HIV-positive. The procedure involves removing T-cells from patients, genetically modifying them outside the body, and the injecting them back into the patient. Here's the news report:
Recruiting for the trial began Tuesday, and the first people to receive the experimental treatment will be HIV patients with drug-resistance problems.
"We do have good treatments for HIV. That has been one of the most successful stories of the last 20 years in medicine," said Pablo Tebas, an infectious disease expert at the University of Pennsylvania.
"However, over time, if the medications are not taken properly, individuals develop resistance to the HIV treatments, so they tend to have more limited therapeutic options."
Since the discovery that a small portion of people who are exposed to HIV do not get infected, scientists have been working to discover the secret to those people's resistance and how to make others resistant as well.
It turns out that most people have a gene called CCR5, which makes them vulnerable to HIV infections. The naturally resistant people have mutant CCR5 genes that inhibit HIV.
Previously, scientists found that by cutting the CCR5 gene out of white blood cells involved in the immune response known as T-cells, they could protect a tube full of human cells from the virus. The gene editing technique relies on proteins called zinc finger nucleases that can delete any gene from a living cell.
In theory, zinc finger nucleases could give that immunity to anyone.
The procedure is simple: Take some healthy T-cells out of an HIV patient, clip out their CCR5 genes, grow more of these clipped T-cells in a dish, and then put them back in the patient.
"In this first study we will re-infuse approximately 10 billion of these cells back into the participants, and we will see if it is safe and if those cells inhibit HIV replication in vivo," said Tebas. "We know they do in the test tube."
I'm excited, but at the same time holding back because I do not want to get my hopes up too much yet.
It is unimaginable what the reaction would be the day we find a cure for this virus.
It would be our luck that it mutates and turns everyone into zombies. (I just watched I am Legend, it's stuck in my head, sorry.)
I'm absolutely fired up about this technology. Not sure how the whole bone marrow, stem cell ablation, issue is going to be sorted, but here's hoping for the best.