Blood from the umbilical cord of a woman has cured HIV, along with stem cell implant from a first line relative as a bridge. Cancer next!

[Spyder54]

In August of that year, she received cord blood from a donor with the mutation that blocks H.I.V.’s entry into cells. But it can take about six weeks for cord blood cells to engraft, so she was also given partially matched blood stem cells from a first-degree relative.

The half-matched “haplo” cells from her relative propped up her immune system until the cord blood cells became dominant, making the transplant much less dangerous, said Dr. Marshall Glesby, an infectious diseases expert at Weill Cornell Medicine of New York and part of the research team.

“The transplant from the relative is like a bridge that got her through to the point of the cord blood being able to take over,” he said.

nytimes.com/2022/02/15/heal...

[Spyder54]

“Cord blood is more widely available than the adult stem cells used in the bone marrow transplants that cured the previous two patients, and it does not need to be matched as closely to the recipient. Most donors in registries are of Caucasian origin, so allowing for only a partial match has the potential to cure dozens of Americans who have both H.I.V. and cancer each year, scientists said.

The woman, who also had leukemia, received cord blood to treat her cancer. It came from a partially matched donor, instead of the typical practice of finding a bone marrow donor of similar race and ethnicity to the patient’s. She also received blood from a close relative to give her body temporary immune defenses while the transplant took.”

[Faith1111]

Interesting that there is a mutation that actually blocks the HIV entry into a cell. I know that it takes about six weeks to re-engineer and grow cells to be transplanted back in when doing Car T. That’s a long time to wait when you are stage four. it would be wonderful if there was a “bridge” to be used during that time. Anyway, this is exciting news for those with HIV and for science as hopefully they relate that to cancer.