POZ Community Forums
Meds, Mind, Body & Benefits => Research News & Studies => Topic started by: buginme2 on August 10, 2011, 07:51:48 pm
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44090512/ns/health-cancer/t/new-leukemia-treatment-exceeds-wildest-expectations/
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Saw this on nightly news. Quite astounding!...I'm hoping the findings will hold in a bigger trial group.
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Amazing. I wonder if this will work in people who have both HIV and leukemia (I know one).
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Does this mean we could use modified HIV to change the white blood cells so they're not as receptacle to other strains of HIV?
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Using a modified, harmless version of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, they inserted a series of genes into the white blood cells. These were designed to make to cells target and kill the cancer cells. After growing a large batch of the genetically engineered white blood cells, the doctors injected them back into the patients.
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white blood cells became “serial killers” relentlessly tracking down and killing the cancer cells in the blood, bone marrow and lymph tissue.
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the most common type of leukemia completely disappear in two of the patients and reduced it by 70 percent in the third. In each of the patients as much as five pounds of cancerous tissue completely melted away in a few weeks, and a year later it is still gone.
Amazing.
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Pat Morrison (local NPR radio host in Los Angeles) held an interview with Michael Kalos one of the researchers in the study. He was asked whether it could be applied to persons with both HIV and cancer and he sated yes. He also said that they are currently enrolling HIV positive research subjects at the University.
He also states that the patient who's cancer returned had corticosteroids administered by their doctor because of the drastic side effects of his immune system killing the cancer cells. This is exciting stuff and I hope this was not some fluke.
You can listen to the interview here:
http://www.scpr.org/programs/patt-morrison/2011/08/11/20254/scientist-explains-how-lab-genetically-modified-t-/
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I don't thnk it's a fluke. I'm excited to see the results with the HIV positive subjects.
There are so many different approaches emerging to battling this virus! Perhaps a combination of these approaches will be sufficient to do the trick. It's has been hypothesized that one method alone may not be sufficient to completely eradicate or subdue HIV so that folks won't have to take antiviral medications.