High Hopes for AIDS Therapy
Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - Stem Cell Guru
Another example of the ways in which adult stem cells are being used to treat a growing number of diseases is found in the article, from the San Francisco Chronicle, about an experimental therapy for AIDS which uses gene therapy in conjunction with a patient's blood stem cells to provide treatment.
The harvested stem cells are treated with a virus which carries a benign gene that in turn tells the cells how to create a ribozyme that targets the HIV virus. Researchers theorize that these stem cells are immune to the AIDS virus and will destroy it when it attempts to infect these cells. Over time any infected cells in the body would eventually die and would be replaced by the new 'super' cells which would remain in the body.
This treatment is still in the trial stage and no scientific data has been released yet, but the article reports on a patient who underwent this exciting new form of treatment almost a year ago and has not required any anitviral drugs since.
The harvested stem cells are treated with a virus which carries a benign gene that in turn tells the cells how to create a ribozyme that targets the HIV virus. Researchers theorize that these stem cells are immune to the AIDS virus and will destroy it when it attempts to infect these cells. Over time any infected cells in the body would eventually die and would be replaced by the new 'super' cells which would remain in the body.
This treatment is still in the trial stage and no scientific data has been released yet, but the article reports on a patient who underwent this exciting new form of treatment almost a year ago and has not required any anitviral drugs since.
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