sida

They created an HIV resistant cell →

Researchers at Stanford University have created HIV-resistant T-cells, a breakthrough that, if proven successful in humans, could potentially stop the virus from developing into AIDS.

The discovery was announced in Tuesday’s issue of Molecular Therapy, and according to researchers, could replace lifelong drug treatments and protect the immune systems of those infected.

A Stanford press release explained the process:

A new study describes the use of a kind of molecular scissors to cut and paste a series of HIV-resistant genes into T-cells. […] By inactivating a receptor gene and inserting additional anti-HIV genes, the virus was blocked from entering the cells, thus preventing it from destroying the immune system.

HIV works by entering and ultimately killing an individual’s T-cells, leading to a collapse of the immune system. Researchers were quick to point out that the therapy is not a cure for HIV, but rather a method to make patients immune to it.

“Once [a person contracts HIV], they become susceptible to all sorts of infections and cancers, and that’s what kills the patient ultimately–not the virus,” explained the study’s principal researcher, Dr. Matthew Porteus, to The Huffington Post. “So our goal is to build an immune system that is resistant to the virus.”

In theory, Porteus and his team could replace a percentage of a patient’s T-cells with the HIV-resistant cells. As the HIV-sensitive cells would die off, the resistant cells would reproduce, eventually creating an immune system of entirely HIV-resistant cells.

“The body has an incredible way of balancing itself,” explained Porteus. “The virus would have no more cells to infect.”

Currently, doctors use drug therapy to help achieve this affect. But because the HIV virus is notorious for mutating, many patients must take dozens of pills a day for the rest of their lives. Should the gene therapy prove successful, the pills–and their sometimes unbearable side effects–would no longer be necessary.

“If you put one roadblock in front of HIV, it is very good about getting around that,” said Porteus. “What we’ve done in our study is shown that we can add multiple layers of protection, creating what is essentially a complete resistance to HIV.”

The Stanford breakthrough is one of several increasingly positive studies in the fight against HIV. In 2007, researchers in Berlin completed a stem cell transplant on an HIV-positive man that appeared to cure him of the virus. Dubbed the “Berlin Patient,” Timothy Ray Brown is still HIV-free four years later.

“The obvious question is why we don’t we do that for everyone,” said Porteus. He explained that the conditions for such a phenomenon are so rare, that a stem cell cure might not be practical on a large scale.

“But if we can create immune systems that are protected against HIV, you could reach a state where you had a fully-functioning immune system with a low level of HIV infection that wouldn’t cause any problems,” he added.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, researchers plan to conduct more lab work before starting animal testing. The team hopes to begin testing on humans within the next five years.

by Mark S. King: The Private War That Killed Spencer Cox

“My most courageous self, the best man that I’ll ever be, lived more than two decades ago during the first years of a horrific plague… I miss the man I was forced to become.”

– “Once, When We Were Heroes,” 2007

AIDS did not kill Spencer Cox in the first, bloodiest battles of the 1980’s. It spared him that.

The reprieve allowed Spencer’s brilliance as co-founder of the Treatment Action Group(TAG) to forge new FDA guidelines for drug approval and help make effective HIV medications a reality, saving an untold number of lives.

Such triumph by a man still in his twenties might have signaled even greater achievements ahead. Instead, Spencer found himself adrift in the same personal crisis as many of his contemporaries, who struggled for a meaningful existence after years of combating the most frightening public health crisis of modern times.

Gay activists like Spencer were consumed by AIDS for so many gruesome years that many of them were shocked, once the war abated, to see how little around them had changed. Climbing from the trenches, they saw a gay culture that must have seemed ludicrous, packed with the same drug addictions, sexual compulsions and soulless shenanigans that AIDS, in its singular act of goodwill, had arrested for a decade or so.

They found themselves in a world in which no one wants to see battle scars, where intimacy is manufactured on keyboards and web sites, where any sense of community had long since faded from the AIDS organizations and now only makes brief appearances in 12-step meetings, or as likely, in the fraternity of active crystal meth addicts chasing deliverance in a dangerous shell game of bliss and desolation.

The dark allure of meth, a drug so devoured and fetished by gay men today that it is now aleading indicator of new HIV infections, enticed Spencer at some point along the way. The drug is known to whisper empty promises about limitless power and sexual escape, while calming the addict’s ghosts and sorrows for miserably brief periods of time.

When Spencer Cox died on December 18, 2012, in New York City, the official cause of death was AIDS-related complications, which is understandable if post-traumatic stress, despair and drug addiction are complications related to AIDS.

Spencer believed that this connection exists. His own writings for the Medius Institute for Gay Men’s Health (an organization he co-founded after his work with TAG) focus on exactly the issues that were distressing him personally: Crystal meth abuse. Loneliness. Risk taking. Feelings of confusion after years of accomplishment and purpose.

In retrospect you can read his work and break the private code written between the lines. It spells out “HELP ME.”

Spencer’s life during this period and beyond was difficult, by many accounts. The Medius Institute failed due to a lack of funding, defeating Spencer’s effort to address mental health issues among gay men. His drug addiction spiraled and ebbed and raged again, until he finally retreated to Georgia to live with family for a few years.

When Spencer returned to New York City last September, many of his closest friends had lost track of him. There is uncertainty about his last months, and no evidence that his addiction was active, but what little medication compliance he managed had been abandoned completely, setting the stage for his final hospitalization.

Spencer Cox died without the benefit of the very drugs he had helped make available to the world. He perished from pneumonia, in an ironic clinical time warp that transported him back to 1985. It was as if, having survived the deadliest years of AIDS, having come so close to complete escape, Spencer was snatched up by the Fates in a vengeful piece of unfinished business.

AIDS has always been creative in its cruelty. And it has learned to reach through the decades with the second-hand tools of disillusionment and depression and heart-numbing traumas. Or, perhaps, using the simple weapon of crystal meth, with all of its seductions and deceits.

Yes. There are many complications related to AIDS.

To consider “survivor’s guilt” the culprit behind the death of Spencer Cox is a popular explanation but not necessarily an accurate one. That condition suggests surviving when other, presumably worthier people, did not. Sometimes guilt has nothing to do with it.

For many of our AIDS war veterans, the real challenge today is living with the horror of having survived at all.

Mark

(PHOTO CREDIT: Walter Kurtz)

Top Stories : Undetectable Viral Load? Not Necessarily in Semen - by Tim Horn →

Undetectable viral loads in blood is not a guarantee that HIV is also undetectable in semen, according to a new study involving 101 HIV-positive men who have sex with men (MSM) conducted in Boston and published online ahead of print by the journal AIDS. Of the 83 men with undetectable virus in blood samples, roughly a quarter of them—21 MSM in total—had semen with detectable HIV. 

Though the study conducted by Joseph Politch, PhD, of Boston University School of Medicine and his colleagues didn’t look at whether those with low-but-detectable levels of HIV in their semen were necessarily more likely to transmit the virus than those with undetectable seminal viral loads, the authors nevertheless caution that a risk of ongoing HIV transmission potentially remains in the absence of barrier protection during sexual activity. “Until more information on transmission risk in MSM is available,” they write, “it would be prudent to advise sexually active HIV-infected MSM to use condoms and other risk-reduction strategies throughout all stages of HIV disease regardless of HIV treatment status.” READ MORE

Poetry Month at TheBody.com: HIV/AIDS-Related Poems From Our Readers - The Body →

Last year’s Poetry Month at TheBody.com was a huge success. Well, it’s that time again! From now through the end of April, we’ll be accepting and posting your poems about living with, or being affected by, HIV. Anything you write is fair game. Pieces can be literal or abstract, serious or funny, short or long (but hopefully not too long), whatever you want. Select poems will be highlighted on our site throughout the month of April!

READ MORE

POZ: Isn't science cool? →

pozmagazine:

Some smarties have created something called JustMilk, it’s a nipple shield that can be modified to include a microbicide to kill the HIV virus and stop mother-to-child transmission. (Nipple shields are for moms who have trouble breast-feeding.) About 400,000 children contract HIV worldwide each year, and nearly all acquire the virus from their mothers. And the risk of transmission is significantly increased through breast feeding. However, the only way to lower the risk is to formula feed, which is usually unsafe, expensive and impractical, especially in developing countries, where formula-fed babies then face a higher risk of malnutrition, diarrhea and other infections. This shield, would allow women to breast-feed without passing along the virus. Click here for more.

New Yorkers Living Longer Than U.S. Average; Officials Cite Expanded HIV Testing and Treatment as Main Factor - The Body →

While moving to New York City may not automatically increase your life expectancy, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that New Yorkers, on average, are living longer than ever before, and longer than people anywhere else in the country. A chief reason for this higher life expectancy, officials say, is the city’s efforts to ensure more people get tested and treated for HIV.

According to the report, from 2000 to 2009, the life expectancy for babies born in New York City increased from 77.7 to 80.6 years, whereas the national rate increased from 76.8 to 78.2 years. Additionally, the New York City life expectancy at age 40 increased from 39.5 to 42 years, while the national average increased from 38.9 to 40.1. And at 70, the average life expectancy in New York City went from 15.4 to 16.9 years, while the national average only increased from 14.4 to 15.1.

So why the better numbers in New York City? READ MORE

The services available to me in NYC are amazing.

Christmas Date

Twas the night before Christmas and though it was late, there was silence in the room – not a word from his date. For the news he had given brought out his worst fear, and all he could feel was the chill in the air.

The gifts were wrapped gently beneath the adorned tree, but with the secret in his heart he could never be free. This time he knew he needed to connect, so he must trust this new guy and show him respect.

Feeling vulnerable has never been natural for me, but the cost of these walls was easy to see. The word HIV still heavy on my lips opened a heart that needed to be fixed.

To the shock and surprise of even his date, the words that he heard were “Thank you. I still think you’re great!”

HIV Positive Man Banned From Touching Doorknobs At Work | Addicting Info →

While discrimination against people with HIV is certainly nothing new, the level of harassment suffered by James White of Detroit, Michigan brings back memories of the darkest days of the initial outbreak. Abetted by President Reagan’s now infamous silence and complete inaction, ill-informed rumors about HIV spread as quickly as the disease itself. Millions of lost lives and decades later, we’re still dealing with the fallout from that total failure in leadership. Read More