By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist

Doctors in Berlin are confirming that they have indeed cured a man of HIV/AIDS after using adult stem cells to treat his leukemia.

PopSci.com is reporting what could be a huge story with far-reaching implications if the procedure can be duplicated on other patients. The patient, an American citizen living in Berlin, received a stem cell transplant back in 2007 as a treatment for his leukemia. These particular stem cells contained a mutation which is found in just one percent of Caucasians in northern and western Europe. These cells lack a receptor necessary for early-stage HIV infection, which means people with this mutation are more or less immune to HIV infection.

These anti-HIV stem cells took root in the Berlin patient and repopulated there and after 38 months, doctors still cannot find any trace of HIV infection in the patient.

” . . . (H)is road to recovery from HIV was excruciating and by no means should this single case of recovery be declared a cure,” writes Clay Dillow of PopSci. “But it does provide a lot of hope and perhaps new mechanisms for deterring the spread of HIV in infected patients and perhaps, someday, a means to defeat the disease in vivo through gene therapy or transplants. More than anything, it defies the idea that HIV is incurable.”

© All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly®/Women of Grace®  http://www.womenofgrace.com