The report of new animal research says around five people have become HIV-free after receiving a stem cell transplant. This is helping the top scientists to develop what they hope will become a widespread cure for the virus. The virus causes AIDS, which has infected approx 38 million people worldwide. The Oregon Health & Science University-led study explained how the two nonhuman primates were cured of the monkey form of HIV after receiving this advanced transplant.
The study’s lead researcher, Jonah Sacha, Ph.D. who is a professor at OHSU’s Oregon National Primate Research Center and Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute said, “Five patients have already demonstrated that HIV can be cured.” In 2009, the first known case of HIV was cured with the help of a stem cell transplant. A man who was facing HIV was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. It is a type of cancer. So, the man went for a stem cell transplant in Berlin, Germany. Stem cell transplants, or you can say bone marrow transplants are beneficial because they can treat some forms of cancer. The man received donated stem cells from someone with a mutated CCR5 gene. This CCR5 mutation makes it complex for the virus to infect cells and can make people resistant to HIV.
According to Richard T. Maziarz, M.D., and Gabrielle Meyers, M.D. “Of the four animals that received transplants, two were cured of HIV – after successfully being treated for graft-versus-host disease, which is commonly associated with stem cell transplants. Other researchers have tried to cure nonhuman primates of HIV using similar methods, but this study marks the first time that HIV-cured research animals have survived long term. Both animals remain alive and HIV-free today, about four years after transplantation. Sacha attributes their survival to exceptional care from Oregon National Primate Research Center veterinarians and the support of two study coauthors, OHSU clinicians who care for people who undergo stem cell transplants.”
The professor of medicine in the OHSU School of Medicine and medical director of the adult blood and marrow stem cell transplant and cellular therapy program at the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute, Maziarz said, “These results highlight the power of linking human clinical studies with pre-clinical macaque experiments to answer questions that would be almost impossible to do otherwise, as well as demonstrate a path forward to curing human disease.”
Jonah Sacha said it was good to confirm stem cell transplantation cured the monkeys. His scientific team also want to understand how it worked. After going through samples from the cured monkeys he and his fellow scientists see there were two different ways the animals beat HIV.
First was transplanted donor stem cells that helped in killing the recipients’ HIV-infected cells. All this is done by recognizing them as foreign invaders and attacking them as the process is quite the same as the process of graft-versus-leukemia that can cure people of cancer. The Second was virus managed to jump into the transplanted donor cells when two animals were not cured. This experiment verified that HIV was able to infect the donor cells while they were attacking HIV.
Jonah Sacha and his team are now planning to research more about the monkeys’ immune responses. They will also identify specific immune cells involved.
