[HN Gopher] CRISPR cure for HIV now tested in 3 people
___________________________________________________________________
CRISPR cure for HIV now tested in 3 people
Author : Brajeshwar
Score : 22 points
Date : 2023-10-29 16:32 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.freethink.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.freethink.com)
| nerdjon wrote:
| Maybe it's just me being jaded after at least 15 years (or at
| least it feels like it) of the HIV cure "coming soon" and the
| personal impact this has had on my community and multiple friends
| (LGBT).
|
| This article being written kinda bothers me? By the authors own
| admission we know almost nothing. We really just know it's safe
| but don't even know if anyone stopped taking their ART.
|
| Sure it's great that we are not getting a setback from it being
| unsafe... but I am just tired of hearing about the false starts
| that time and time again turn out ineffective.
|
| Like I said maybe I am just jaded here but something about this
| rubs me the wrong way.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| imo, progress usually can't be made without mistakes. There may
| be many 'coming soon' cures, but a lot will fail, some will
| cure other things than original disease, some will advance
| understanding of the disease and gradually, progress is made
| from different directions
| vikramkr wrote:
| I'm kind of torn since I hate PR nonsense like this but I'm
| also glad that HIV research is still getting money and
| happening - you can't take for granted that there would be
| enough incentive for people to even keep trying in our current
| system
| nerdjon wrote:
| That is very valid, I guess I may have a certain view since
| HIV is not something that I need to read an article to be
| reminded of? It is basically a daily thought for me.
|
| I should be clear that I am happy that the research is being
| done, its just this article isn't (unless I missed it) isn't
| even a PR piece for the company doing it? A company putting
| out the actual PR is perfectly valid and I think a standard
| practice.
| barrysteve wrote:
| The article is written in a very ambigious manner.
|
| Lots of 'cure' mentions while admitting the treatment is not a
| cure. Trials run with ambigious results, and Excision is
| protecting the data until 2024.
|
| Honestly not sure if I read an article at all. It reads like a
| 'keep alive' ping from an old space probe reporting back it's
| still alive status.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| HIV is extremely challenging to cure, since it writes itself into
| your blood's stem cell DNA and even if you could somehow wipe out
| every individual viral unit in your body at once, your own cells
| can still express that DNA and recreate the virus from scratch.
|
| We've seen blood cancer patients cured of HIV after getting a
| bone marrow transplant, where the stem cells in their own bone
| marrow are wiped out before being replaced with stem cells from a
| healthy donor, but that's a little too extreme a procedure for
| widespread use.
|
| > A man dubbed the 'Geneva patient' appears to be the latest
| person cured of HIV after a stem cell transplant for cancer
| treatment. Unlike the other five known cases, however, he
| received stem cells from a donor who does not have a rare
| mutation that prevents HIV from entering cells. The man continues
| to have undetectable HIV 20 months after stopping antiretroviral
| therapy (ART).
|
| https://www.aidsmap.com/news/jul-2023/first-person-may-be-cu...
|
| Mostly the focus has been on developing a vaccine for prevention,
| and treatments that suppress the disease in the already infected.
|
| This is the first safety trial I'm aware of where a strategy that
| could at least theoretically succeed in curing the already
| infected has been tried.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-10-29 23:02 UTC)