I have always thought that the "compartmentalization" of our scientists prevents maximum technological development. Prime examples: Bell labs pointed a huge microwave communications receiver skyward during testing and accidentally discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation for cosmologists; or NASA infrared satellite photometry reveals Mayan sites long covered by jungle. University professors and other researchers should be required to have offices mixed in with other disciplines as a condition of their grants. We may be witnessing another variation of this theme when clinical doctors, rather than funded researchers recently reported the first HIV cure to both people that were listening. What happened after the jump.
It has been known for more than a decade that a certain genetic marker made people HIV resistant. The 1996 study found:
For example, in 1665, the plague hit a small village in England called Eyam. The town quarantined itself to keep the Black Death from spreading into the rest of the country. A year later, the plague had burnt itself out but half of the townspeople were dead. Was there something special about the half that lived? In 1996, researchers tracked down descendants of the people of Eyam and looked for any mutations they might have in common to explain this high survival rate. What they found was a mutation called CCR5-delta 32. Smallpox killed 3 in 10 infected people for thousands of years in Europe. Recent studies suggest that smallpox, like HIV, can't infect someone with the CCR5-delta 32 mutation.
Then German clinical doctors, not researchers, reported the first AIDS cure earlier this year. Why haven't we heard more about it? Is there a bias against advances that are not produced by the expected sources? The now stale "scoop" was announced (subsciption req'd) like this:
We transplanted stem cells from a donor who was homozygous for CCR5 delta32 in a patient with acute myeloid leukemia and HIV-1 infection. The patient remained without viral rebound 20 months after transplantation and discontinuation of antiretroviral therapy. This outcome demonstrates the critical role CCR5 plays in maintaining HIV-1 infection.
The HIV patient developed leukemia and the treating docs deliberately choose a less compatible marrow donor who had the mutation that is known to include HIV resistence. Usually there is a huge viral "rebound" when meds are discontinued, so this is way bigger than merely showing some resistence to infection, and seems to indicate a cure.
Now I don't think that Magic Johnson will run out and get his bone marrow replaced, but WOW, it's not just a genetic indicator of resistence, but affects the ability of the reverse transcriptase to be received into the cell to MAINTAIN the infection. Are the GLBT blogs the only ones interested in these issues anymore?