Jay Levy of UCSF wrote a recent editorial in the NEJM (Levy, NEJM, 2/12/09), as reported in this Medical News Today article, New HIV/AIDS Research Directions Show Promise, NEJM Editorial Says. This is the first time I've read about this, and find it incredibly fascinating and exciting. Here are my takeaways from reading the article . . .
- Recent HIV/AIDS research that examines the role certain genes play in inhibiting HIV progression shows promise for the development of new treatment measures
- HIV enters the body through CD4+ T cells and then binds to the chemokine receptors CCR5 and CXCR4.
- Research has found that people whose cells lack expression of the CCR5 gene typically demonstrate resistance to the virus.
- Researchers examined the case of an HIV-positive patient with myelogenous leukemia who received a bone marrow transplant from a person whose cells lacked expression of the CCR5 gene. After two transplants, the researchers determined that the patient had no leukemia recurrence and no detectable level of HIV in the bloodstream
- Levy says, "the result of this study [reported in the same NEJM issue] and others provide further encouragement for those examining approaches to treatment that reduce CCR5 [receptor] expression in persons with HIV." This is the study Levy refers to, Brief Report: Long-Term Control of HIV by CCR5 Delta32/Delta32 Stem-Cell Transplantation (summary).
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