Barcelona – Research using man-made, blood-forming stem cells has shown great promise in animal experiments in suppressing HIV.
But now a grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) has funded a clinical trial using those bio-engineered stem cells to treat HIV patients who have lymphoma, a deadly cancer that eventually kills people with AIDS.
Timothy Brown was the first patient to ever be cured of HIV after a bone marrow transplant to treat his leukemia received. He is known as the ‘Berlin patient’.
By using blood transplants from the umbilical cords of individuals with a genetic resistance to HIV, Spanish medical professionals believe they can treat the virus, having proven the procedure successful with one patient.
Now, a 37-year-old man from Barcelona, who had been infected with the HIV virus in 2009, was cured of the condition after receiving a transplant of blood.
While unfortunately the man later died from cancer just three years later, having developed lymphoma, the Spanish medical team is still hugely encouraged by what it considers to be a breakthrough in the fight against HIV and related conditions, according to the Spanish news source El Mundo.
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