On the heels of World AIDS Day comes a stunning medical breakthrough: Doctors believe an HIV-positive man who underwent a stem cell transplant has been cured as a result of the procedure.

Timothy Ray Brown, also known as the "Berlin Patient," received the transplant in 2007 as part of a lengthy treatment course for leukemia. His doctors recently published a report in the journal Blood affirming that the results of extensive testing "strongly suggest that cure of HIV infection has been achieved."

Brown's case paves a path for constructing a permanent cure for HIV through genetically-engineered stem cells.

Last week, Time named another AIDS-related discovery to its list of the Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs of 2010. Recent studies show that healthy individuals who take antiretrovirals, medicine commonly prescribed for treating HIV, can reduce their risk of contracting the disease by up to 73 percent.

While these developments by no means prove a cure for the virus has been found, they can certainly provide hope for the more than 33 million people living with HIV worldwide. Alongside such findings, global efforts to combat the epidemic have accelerated as of late, with new initiatives emerging in the Philippines and South Africa this week.

hrmmm I didn't think stem cells would be effective against HIV. I always assumed that HIV would infect the incoming stem cells.

Perhaps they give the existing cells the extra push neccessary to fight back?

Or perhaps by being in the presence of the virus they can grow resistant to it... kinda like that arsenic bacteria?

Or perhaps it's a fluke?

So stem cells are a cure-all? We're saved!

Forget constructive dialog, debate or differing points of view; from now on I think we should all just throw shoes whenever we disagree with somebody. That's what civilized, responsible people do. Eat shoe, political detractors!

After looking it up more in depth with other links it makes more sense. The treatment was for leukemia, but the scientist used stem cells from one of the rare people who are immune to HIV, not a carrier but simply immune, also they carry plague immunity too because both attack lymph nodes. Anyways the treatment for leukemia destroys the immune system to nothing so they refilled the immune system with HIV immune cells.

I also like stem cells for nerve and heart damage, but the goal is to prevent heart attacks.

Were the stem cells involved embryonic or not?

Embryonic stem cells are old busted joint. The new hotness is to use adult stem cells, that's how they knew the person the original stem cells came from was immune to HIV

Forget constructive dialog, debate or differing points of view; from now on I think we should all just throw shoes whenever we disagree with somebody. That's what civilized, responsible people do. Eat shoe, political detractors!

Good. That was my only quibble; I'm pro-stem cell, so long as they're not embryonic.

Sentios:
CCR5-Δ32 is a deletion mutation of a gene that has a specific impact on the function of T cells. CCR5-Δ32 is widely dispersed throughout Northern Europe and in those of Northern European descent. It has been hypothesized that this allele was favored by natural selection during the Black Death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCR5

Good. That was my only quibble; I'm pro-stem cell, so long as they're not embryonic.