More than 36 million people worldwide currently have HIV/AIDs, including 1.8 million children. 35 million people have already died from HIV/AIDs since the epidemic began.
Scientists have been frantically trying to develop a cure for HIV/AIDs since the 1980s. Researchers in Spain may have finally found a solution to the epidemic, using stem cells to repair a patient’s immune system.
The concept for this new treatment is based on an accidental scientific discovery that occurred in 2007, when a man named Timothy Brown was accidentally cured of HIV after receiving a stem cell transplant. Brown was being treated for leukaemia and received a stem cell transplant from a donor who had cells which were naturally resistant to the HIV virus. The transplant helped Brown’s body to fight off his HIV infection.
Now, Spanish researchers have managed to emulate that process by treating a patient with stem cells from a HIV-resistant donor. The patient received stem cells from the umbilical cord blood of a donor who had a genetic mutation that made him naturally resistant to HIV.
For the treatment to work, the patient first received a very high dose of chemotherapy. The patient’s ability to produce healthy red blood cells was then restored using stem cells. Because the stem cell transplant had the CCR Delta 35 mutation, the HIV virus could not successfully attach itself to the new blood cells being produced. Three months after receiving the transplant, the patient was declared free of HIV.
There is another trial already underway in the United States, which uses gene editing to produce white blood cells that are genetically resistant to HIV. Scientists now believe that using stem cells will lead to a cure for HIV/AIDS in the near future.
Source: Spanish Doctors Say They Found HIV Cure
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