The obstacle to using Stem Cell Transplant to cure HIV

right now 37 million people worldwide

are living with HIV and only a few have ever

been cured. The story of Timothy Brown

has inspired scientists to develop new

methods to try to cure hiv/aids using

stem cells here is his story

Timothy Brown was a 40 year old HIV

positive man who was diagnosed with a

fatal blood cancer acute myeloid

leukemia in order to treat his deadly

cancer he received a bone-marrow

transplant from a healthy donor but with

a game-changing twist the donor was

chosen from a tiny fraction of people

about one percent of Northern Europeans

who carry a rare genetic mutation that

makes them immune to the most common

type of HIV HIV is a virus that infect

cells of a person's immune system

killing them because their immune system

is compromised the person is prone to

dangerous infections which lead to the

development of AIDS all of the immune

cells infected by the HIV virus come

from the body's blood forming stem cells

Timothy Browns infected blood cells were

removed and replaced with new blood stem

cells immune to HIV eventually Timothy's

entire immune system rebooted and became

HIV resistant thereby curing his HIV

unfortunately not every hiv-positive

person is as lucky as Timothy brown in

fact these treatments can be very

dangerous so blood stem cell transplants

are reserved for cancers that are

unresponsive to treatment in addition

for the transplant to be successful the

donor and patient must be as closely

matched as possible finding the right

bone-marrow donor that also has the rare

genetic mutation that triggers HIV

immunity is very difficult however there

is hope Timothy Browns story has taught

us that it is possible to cure HIV by

replacing a patient's damaged

and hiv-infected immune system cells

with HIV resistant ones that come from

HIV resistant blood stem cells what if

instead of waiting for the perfect donor

to cure someone's HIV we figured out a

way to make the patient's own immune

system HIV resistant by making their own

blood stem cells HIV resistant a number

of research groups are working on this

question in novel and exciting ways

thanks to funding from California's

Proposition 71

three groups are making significant

contributions a team led by dr. John SIA

at City of Hope in collaboration with

the University of Southern California

and Sangamo Biosciences has developed a

method to take blood stem cells from an

hiv-positive patient use gene therapy to

make those cells HIV resistant and then

return the modified blood stem cells to

the patient another group led by dr.

Joseph Anderson at University of

California Davis is taking a similar

approach they are isolating blood stem

cells from an HIV positive person

modifying the cells to become resistant

to HIV by blocking the ability of HIV to

infect cells at several stages and then

reintroducing only the engineered stem

cells after a purification step a study

sponsored by Cal immune Inc is

genetically modifying both immune cells

and stem cells to be HIV resistant and

transplanting them back into the patient

once the patient receives those modified

HIV resistant blood stem cells they

could begin to rebuild an entirely new

immune system that would have the

potential to block HIV infection thereby

offering an approach to both cure and

prevent HIV the City of Hope Cal immune

Inc and UC Davis teams have been able to

make animals immune systems resistant to

HIV infection human clinical trials are

underway to test this therapy and

hiv-positive people

importantly if this approach can work in

AIDS it can also be applied to certain

immune disorders

cancers and more only with continued

support for biomedical research can we

realize the full potential of stem-cell

research

but there is another crucial part of the

story these tremendous milestones of

progress wouldn't have been possible

without the hard work advocacy and

support of the HIV eighth patient

advocate community HIV advocates have

been driving policy in support of

biomedical research for over 20 years

and continue to be an incredibly strong

force today as scientists and patient

advocates build on the progress that

proposition 71 funding has enabled we

must keep the momentum going

understanding that there is still much

work to be done

we must remember that human trials will

celebrate successes the barriers will

surface along with complications and

challenges so patience and understanding

of the scientific discovery process are

essential