Doctors in Berlin are reporting that they cured a man of AIDS by giving him transplanted blood stem cells from a person naturally resistant to the virus. ... the chances of finding a donor who is a good tissue match for the patient and also has the rare genetic mutation that confers resistance to H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, are extremely small. Nonetheless, the man has been free of the virus for 20 months even though he is not using antiretroviral drugs, and the success in his case is evidence that a long-dreamed-of therapy for AIDS — injecting stem cells that have been genetically re-engineered with the mutation — might work.
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Dr. Irvin S. Y. Chen, director of the AIDS Institute at U.C.L.A. , is working on using RNA “hairpin scissors” to cut out the bits of genetic material in blood stem cells that code for the receptors. The concept is working in monkeys, he said. Eventually, he hopes, it will be possible to inject them into humans after wiping out only part of the immune system with drugs.
I posted this comment:
Why not insert the DNA sequence that confers resistance to H.I.V. into the corresponding gene in a nucleus taken from the patient, then clone the stem cells? Unlike monkeying with monkey cells, there would be no need to harm the patient's immune system at all. Of course, the George W. Bush ban on therapeutic cloning will need to be repealed - or those who need the treatment will travel to an Atheist country like the Netherlands or the Czech Republic to be cured. It would be better for America to repeal this idiotic prohibition. Political stupidity is NOT a law of nature.
Adam Reed, Torrrance, California
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