#functional cure

[pozmagazine]

First Woman May Be Cured of HIV Without a Bone Marrow Transplant

Loreen Willenberg is part of a group of elite controllers whose HIV appears to be locked away where it can't produce new virus.

A California woman may be the first person to be cured of HIV without a bone marrow transplant, according to a recent report in Nature. More than 60 other so-called elite controllers, who have unusually potent immune responses to HIV, were found to have their virus sequestered in parts of their genome where it is unable to replicate.

The unusual case involves Loreen Willenberg, who acquired HIV in 1992. Her immune system has maintained control of the virus for decades without the use of antiretroviral treatment, and researchers have been unable to find any intact virus in more than 1.5 billion of her cells. Elite controllers are thought to make up less than half a percent of all people living with HIV.

“I believe Loreen might indeed meet anyone’s definition of a cure,” study coauthor Steven Deeks, MD, of the University of California at San Francisco, told POZ. “Despite heroic efforts, we just could not find any virus that is able to replicate. Her immune system seems completely normal. Even her HIV antibodies levels are low, which is unprecedented in an untreated person.”

[mirletaliz]

HIV-Positive People With Lymphoma Can Be Treated With CAR-T Therapy

Customized T-cell treatment is generally safe for people living with HIV, and outcomes are comparable to those of HIV-negative people.

[pozmagazine]

Treatment News: FDA Approves Early Human Trial of Potential HIV Functional Cure

The treatment involves drawing blood-producing stem cells from HIV-positive study participants who have had a poor response to antiretroviral (ARV) therapy. Next, the researchers will splice in genetic instructions to immune cells to make them resistant to the virus.

[pozmagazine]

HIV Returns in the "Mississippi Baby" Once Thought Cured Last week, blood work showed the child had a viral load of 16,750. Clinicians resumed HIV treatment, and thus far the viral load has dropped to 2,658. Tests confirmed that the virus was the same that was inherited from the mother and not a new strain.

[pozmagazine]

We're Still Hoping for a Functionally Cured Canadian Baby After five children across Canada were all treated with aggressive antiretroviral (ARV) regimens shortly after birth, they showed little or no sign of the virus, even under highly sensitive tests.

But no-one knows if they're actually cured and now, a new report says at least one child has experienced a viral rebound after a recent treatment interruption.

[inphasenews-blog]

A “functional cure” describes when the virus is reduced to such low levels that it is kept at bay even without continuing treatment. The virus, however, is still detectable in the body. Treating people with HIV rapidly after they have become infected with the virus that causes AIDS may be enough to achieve a “functional cure” in a small proportion of patients diagnosed early, according to new research. The person is cured to the extent they are asymptomatic or almost so, but may be still testing “positive”.

[actgnetwork]

French researchers have identified 14 adults who have been able to control their HIV infection for years after stopping treatment with antiviral drugs, a finding that suggests that some patients might be able to achieve a so-called functional cure.

[tsihealthcare1-blog]