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Stem cells may cure aids.

Cainkane1 said:
http://www.newsoxy.com/health/stem-cell-aids-13655.html

Research seems to show that stem cells can generate blood cells that are immune to aids infection and actually destroy the virus.
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The news source for this reads near identical to this news item from February 2010.

I wouldn't go so far as to say these cells "actually destroy" the virus. What they do is provide fewer susceptible cells to host the virus as it continues to replicate. It runs out of cells to infect, so the overall quantity of virus will be much less.

The snag is that viruses are known to use other coreceptors apart from CCR5.
Such as CXCR4. And HIV is known to switch from needing CCR5 receptors to infect cells to needing CXCR4 the longer infection lasts.
So I doubt this will be a cure, rather it might be a way of treating and helping contain the virus more effectively.
 
Deetee said:
So I doubt this will be a cure, rather it might be a way of treating and helping contain the virus more effectively.
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Well...AIDS is typically defined as being HIV positive and having a low CD4 count. So....cure, yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean as much as might be hoped.
 
If AIDS becomes curable we can all engage in reckless promiscuous sex without any regard for the consequences -- except pregnancies, but they have a pill for that.
 
INRM said:
If AIDS becomes curable we can all engage in reckless promiscuous sex without any regard for the consequences -- except pregnancies, but they have a pill for that.
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I can't figure out if you are being sarcastic or not, but I would consider this a good thing. Make love, not war.

In fact, I would say one of the best possible things that could happen to human race is to separate sex from procreation entirely. Make every child a wanted child, and make sex a harmless recreation.
 
Mark6 said:
I can't figure out if you are being sarcastic or not, but I would consider this a good thing. Make love, not war.

In fact, I would say one of the best possible things that could happen to human race is to separate sex from procreation entirely. Make every child a wanted child, and make sex a harmless recreation.
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Regardless of whether we cure AIDS, the fact remains that sex is and always will be an incredibly easy way to transfer diseases, of which there are already plenty besides AIDS and will probably be more in the future. I'm all for curing diseases, but sex is never going to be completely harmless, and we should recognize it as such.
 
There's no cure for herpes or genital warts, and there are antibiotic resistant strains of the diseases we can cure.
 
Scott Haley said:
There's no cure for herpes or genital warts, and there are antibiotic resistant strains of the diseases we can cure.
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You're nuts. My ex-girlfriend used to have both and she told me she was cured.....oh shi...
 
The CCR5 deletion is based on a natural mutation that renders people resistant to HIV...so it is a promising approach.

A similar paper was published 2 years ago: http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v26/n7/full/nbt1410.html

The Feb 2010 paper out of UCLA used small interfering RNAs to knock down expression of CCR5, to do this they had to integrate to the siRNA into the host cell genome with a lentivirus. This is not ideal for clinical use. Deletion with a zinc-finger nucleases is a better strategy because a retrovirus is not needed.
 
We are on the cusp of an incredible leap forward in medicine.

Once we tap in to being able to have the body perform its own repairs, and grow spare parts from our own cells, we'll look back at medicine now as being little better than Chirurgeons mucking about with leeches.

If we can keep the Theocrats out of office, I might even live long enough to benefit from it.

The stem cell ban is one of the most heinous crimes the Shrub pushed through.
 
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