"Scientists find mechanism for spontaneous HIV cure"

[tryingtostay]

Well it seems HIV has reached MSN headlines.  No thorough detail on things but it looks like sort of a silencing of the HIV DNA?  I could be wrong.  Removing HIV from the blood plasma was also used but we all know HIV is not limited to the blood plasma so you gotta read between the writers lines.  I'd like to hear more on their findings if it already hasn't been posted

LINK

It's a short read.  Ok here.  I'll post it, heh.

French scientists on Tuesday unveiled the genetic mechanism by which they believe two men were spontaneously cured of HIV, and said the discovery may offer a new strategy in the fight against AIDS.

In both asymptomatic men, the AIDS-causing virus was inactivated due to an altered HIV gene coding integrated into human cells, they wrote in the journal Clinical Microbiology and Infection.

This, in turn, was likely due to stimulation of an enzyme that may in future be targeted for drug treatment to induce the same response, they said.

"This finding represents an avenue for a cure," study co-author Didier Raoult of the French Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) told AFP.

Neither of the men, one diagnosed HIV positive 30 years ago and the other in 2011, have ever been ill, and the AIDS-causing virus cannot be detected with routine tests of their blood.

In both, the virus was unable to replicate due to DNA coding changes that the researchers proposed were the result of a spontaneous evolution between humans and the virus that is called "endogenisation".

"We propose that HIV cure may occur through HIV endogenisation in humans," they wrote. "We believe that the persistence of HIV DNA can lead to cure, and protection, from HIV."

The approach hitherto has been the opposite: to try and clear all traces of HIV from human cells.

The teams said they did not believe the two patients were unique or that the phenomenon was new.

[Almost2late]

Thanks 4 the link  ... Found another on the same story..

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/mobile/health/scientists-see-mechanism/1452936.html

Btw, I found the msn story a bit misleading...The link I posted was a little more thorough.

[tryingtostay]

The only thing I see as beneficial is the fact that the article reached MSN headlines.  HIV needs all the publicity, recognition, and awareness it can get, still.  IMO that's all this article/report was worth.

[Giancarlo]

The original study is published here:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1469-0691.12807/abstract

[Almost2late]

The only thing I see as beneficial is the fact that the article reached MSN headlines.  HIV needs all the publicity, recognition, and awareness it can get, still.  IMO that's all this article/report was worth.

I agree, but to someone like myself, not very educated on this stuff, the story reads like a cure may have been found 

[tryingtostay]

I was just saying.  Now that I look back at the article I posted, I personally I kinda regret posting such junk.  It was just exciting to see HIV in a headline on MSN.

It mentions the HIV is inactive because of 'HIV endogenisation' but isn't there a parallel problem with HIV, also?  The latent HIV?  They should use that Ssu72 protein recently found Article to see if it can kick-off HIV replication with these "spontaneously cured" people.

The best thing going is CRISPR-Cas9. 

[tryingtostay]

whoops

[Giancarlo]

I find the study pretty exciting, although I don't think I understand half of it.
Scientists seem to have found a new mechanism that explains why some elite controllers are actually elite controllers. That's new knowledge on how the human body can fight HIV. That's a brand new research avenue which is being opened, one that can potentially lead to a cure for some of us, someday.
So I guess that was worth posting...

[Markmt]

I thought elite controllers secret was a naturally occurring missing CCr5 receptor that Sangamo (and others) are presently working on through gene therapy. So this enzyme could be an addition to this? or elite controllers have more then one reason to be such?