In Which We May Have Cured HIV

I understand that sentence up there is totally crazy, but I'm looking at a journal publication that cites extensive peer review and exhaustive testing, and it really, really looks like someone was cured of HIV.

Holy shit.

The gist is this, quoted straight from the abstract:

from topnews.ae

"Doctors who carried out a stem cell transplant on an HIV-infected man with leukaemia in 2007 say they now believe the man to have been cured of HIV infection as a result of the treatment, which introduced stem cells which happened to be resistant to HIV infection....They have now published a follow-up report in the journal Blood, arguing that based on the results of extensive tests, 'It is reasonable to conclude that cure of HIV infection has been achieved in this patient.'”

The case history drops the science with greater specificity, explaining the processes of CD4 cells with CCR5 receptors, and terminology like "delta 32 homozygosity" and other things I usually rely on my best friend the nurse to decode for me. The whole clinical situation sounds rather rare and highly, highly intense--but my really-not-schooled-in-medicine-brain is registering that the combination of chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant from an extremely rare donor nuked the HIV out of this guy, and prevented it from coming back.


Aforementioned nurse best friend is probably (rightfully)groaning at my simplicity and butchering of this concept, so I'm going to take this opportunity to formally invite him to write me a response/correction for luddites of biology like me. That's me calling you out, Stan--I would love to understand this properly.


Until he or someone else manages to tell me otherwise, I'm gonna sit here and gape in awe that I got to write about humanity -curing HIV- in more than just a list of things I hope happen before I die.