Gene therapy revives new hope for AIDS cure

In 2007, a man in Germany donated blood stem cells to an American man living with both leukemia and HIV. The transplant cured both diseases apparently due to the donor's immunity to HIV. This report can be found here. About 1% of white people and less of minorities are immune to the virus. This article reports on promising follow up research from this discovery. 

The rare immunity is due to absence of both copies of the CCR5 gene which creates a protein receptor where the HIV virus normally would enter. Sangamo BioSciences Inc., in California has produced a treatment which deletes exact portions of DNA, permanently erasing a gene, like the one which codes for the protein receptor, CCR5.  The treatment was carried out on 6 HIV positive individuals and the result was that their blood was maintaining and reproducing the resistant cells- up to 6% of their total T-cells, were now resistant to HIV a year after initial infusion.  It is still unknown if the treatment carries risks or if it will need to be redone in the future. The goal of this is that people will not have to take the massive amounts of medicine to survive. So far the results are outdoing expectations it seems. We may be on the path to a cure.

HIV virus