HIV: A Possibility of a Cure on the Rise
A man has completely cured of HIV and has no need for treatment in regards to the disease, he has not experienced a relapse, and a baby born with HIV experienced a prolonged period of no infection before relapsing. With what is known about this disease and how it affects the immune system it seems like this should have never happened. Living with HIV has been long associated with a death sentence. In the following I will explore the possibility of a cure by investigating the origin of HIV and it 's spread, the awareness of the disease and living with HIV treatments, a serendipity cure and a hope of replication, and the possibility of creating a permanent cure in HIV positive infants.
While HIV is endemic …show more content…
HIV is the Human Immunodeficiency Virus and the AIDS.gov website does a wonderful job at explaining what it means to be infected by HIV. They explain that HIV is very similar to other viruses but that over time with normal viruses your body is able to clean them out. And that with HIV your body is unable to do so. It is possible for HIV to hide within the cells of your body and that it specifically targets instrumental parts of your immune system, the T-cells or CD4 cells. These particular cells are present in your immune system to help fight off disease and infections, but HIV takes over these cells and uses them to make copies of itself and then destroy them. Once HIV destroys so many of these cells your body is unable to fight off infection or disease anymore and when this happen HIV can develop into AIDS which is the final stage of HIV infection. It is possible to never progress to AIDS and this is possible if you seek treatment. Antiretroviral Therapy helps to keep the HIV virus low within your body, this treatment involves taking a specific combination of medicines every day. By partaking in treatement an HIV positive individual is able to live longer and reduces the risk of transmitting HIV to others. However, not everyone who has HIV either knows they have it, does not seek treatment, or continues to knowingly infect others. For the United States, as …show more content…
But for one man commonly known as "The Berlin patient" in 2008 his life as he knew it was forever altered when the HIV he had was no longer detectable within his body. And presently he still has no trace of the disease. A flurry of questions, fascination, and intrigue surrounded this occurrence, the medical community wanted to know how this could have happened. Timothy Ray Brown was diagnosed with HIV in 1995 and he soon began the antiretroviral therapy, because he was able to control the virus with medications he never presented any illnesses associated with AIDS. When he was later diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia he was given chemotherapy to treat the cancer, the reaction of the chemo mixed with his antiretroviral drugs had toxic effects and so he stopped taking the HIV medicine. This too also had a negative affect and he was put back on to the HIV medications shortly after. This is what led to his doctors deciding to carry out an experimental procedure in which he received a stem cell transplant from an unrelated donor who had very specific mutations. As previously mentioned HIV infects the CD4 T cells, and in the Caucasian population 1% has a mutation called CCRdelta32, this mutated cell has a smaller than normal receptor and results in the carrier of this mutation to be immune to HIV infection. So the doctors transplanted Brown with these mutated stem
A man has completely cured of HIV and has no need for treatment in regards to the disease, he has not experienced a relapse, and a baby born with HIV experienced a prolonged period of no infection before relapsing. With what is known about this disease and how it affects the immune system it seems like this should have never happened. Living with HIV has been long associated with a death sentence. In the following I will explore the possibility of a cure by investigating the origin of HIV and it 's spread, the awareness of the disease and living with HIV treatments, a serendipity cure and a hope of replication, and the possibility of creating a permanent cure in HIV positive infants.
While HIV is endemic …show more content…
HIV is the Human Immunodeficiency Virus and the AIDS.gov website does a wonderful job at explaining what it means to be infected by HIV. They explain that HIV is very similar to other viruses but that over time with normal viruses your body is able to clean them out. And that with HIV your body is unable to do so. It is possible for HIV to hide within the cells of your body and that it specifically targets instrumental parts of your immune system, the T-cells or CD4 cells. These particular cells are present in your immune system to help fight off disease and infections, but HIV takes over these cells and uses them to make copies of itself and then destroy them. Once HIV destroys so many of these cells your body is unable to fight off infection or disease anymore and when this happen HIV can develop into AIDS which is the final stage of HIV infection. It is possible to never progress to AIDS and this is possible if you seek treatment. Antiretroviral Therapy helps to keep the HIV virus low within your body, this treatment involves taking a specific combination of medicines every day. By partaking in treatement an HIV positive individual is able to live longer and reduces the risk of transmitting HIV to others. However, not everyone who has HIV either knows they have it, does not seek treatment, or continues to knowingly infect others. For the United States, as …show more content…
But for one man commonly known as "The Berlin patient" in 2008 his life as he knew it was forever altered when the HIV he had was no longer detectable within his body. And presently he still has no trace of the disease. A flurry of questions, fascination, and intrigue surrounded this occurrence, the medical community wanted to know how this could have happened. Timothy Ray Brown was diagnosed with HIV in 1995 and he soon began the antiretroviral therapy, because he was able to control the virus with medications he never presented any illnesses associated with AIDS. When he was later diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia he was given chemotherapy to treat the cancer, the reaction of the chemo mixed with his antiretroviral drugs had toxic effects and so he stopped taking the HIV medicine. This too also had a negative affect and he was put back on to the HIV medications shortly after. This is what led to his doctors deciding to carry out an experimental procedure in which he received a stem cell transplant from an unrelated donor who had very specific mutations. As previously mentioned HIV infects the CD4 T cells, and in the Caucasian population 1% has a mutation called CCRdelta32, this mutated cell has a smaller than normal receptor and results in the carrier of this mutation to be immune to HIV infection. So the doctors transplanted Brown with these mutated stem