VRX496 - What will you do if this is the cure ?

[John2038]

The Interim Results from VRX496 Gene Therapy Phase II Trial gives me the strong feeling that we are on the way to have nearly found a cure (HIV no more a treat). If it's not with the VRX496, it will probably be with another variant, but with the Gene Therapy.

The Company has demonstrated that such a vector can inhibit HIV replication by more than 99%:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15194057?dopt=AbstractPlus

Phase II
http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=glbt&sc2=news&sc3=&id=55960
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/02-06-2008/0004751086&EDATE=


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Quotes
"This appears to be a significant demonstration of slowing and possibly halting the replication of the infectious HIV virus in humans," said Dr. Gary Blick, Medical Director, Circle Medical LLC. "VRX496 appears to cause wt-HIV particles to lose their envelopes and the in vivo pressure delivered by a patient's own modified cells leads to massive quasispecie reductions and production of impaired and less replicative virions. This treatment shows tremendous promise."
..
"We are proving the effectiveness of our lentiviral vector approach in attacking HIV," said Dr. Laurent Humeau, VP of R&D for VIRxSYS. "Our lentiviral vector VRX496 appears to sustain expression of the RNA antisense targeting the HIV envelope for a long period of time, with a measurable effect on the HIV replicative fitness up to 3 years following a single injection. We believe this will prove to be an important step in the treatment of this disease."
..
VRX496 has the potential to change HIV/AIDS care. Currently there are a variety of drugs available for HIV-infected patients, but all have long-term complications. To date, there have been no reported adverse events in any patient receiving VRX496 in clinical trials. In addition, VRX496 does not require daily administration.
..
“These results are everything we’ve been hoping for,” said Dr. Riku Rautsola, CEO and President of VIRxSYS. “VRX496 is a remarkably promising treatment for HIV. We are very excited about what we are seeing so far in our trials and are confident that these results will continue into Phase III.”

The VIRxSYS results were presented at CROI on Tuesday, February 5th 2008.


I'm surprise to not see much much more echoes after these results !

So.. lets dream..
If it appears that this is the cure (or a way to it), I'm gonna celebrate it in an incredible way..
Maybe having a hippie lifestyle in India for few months, and then travel all around the world.
I'll then have plenty of kids, when, exhausted, I will be back home. 

What will you do ?

[Cliff]

Gene therapy seems promising.  But it's all a bit early.  Too early to think about what I would do.

[Dachshund]

If it appears that this is the cure (or a way to it), I'm gonna celebrate it in an incredible way..
Maybe having a hippie lifestyle in India for few months, and then travel all around the world.
I'll then have plenty of kids, when, exhausted, I will be back home. 

You know John you could begin to celebrate now, doing everything you mention above without gene therapy. It's wonderful to dream, but waiting for a cure is a sure way to accept life passing you by.

[GSOgymrat]

I guess I'd have to find some other website to hang out in.

[Queen Tokelove]

It does give one hope. Interesting to say the least.