Experiments envision HIV immunity
By Xu Jingxi / Cheng Yingqi | China Daily | Updated: 2016-04-27 08:07
Chinese scientists are working on new projects inspired by the documented case of a man who was cured of AIDS. They hope eventually find a way to ensure that humans are born with immunity to the disease.
Nine years ago, a 41-year-old man, who has since been dubbed the "Berlin patient", was close to death and in the advanced stages of both AIDS and leukemia. Doctors gave him a stem cell transplant from an HIV-resistant donor, and miraculously cured both conditions, making him arguably the first person ever to be cured of AIDS.
The remarkable case shed light on CCR5 - a receptor in humans that helps HIV enter cells. The bone-marrow transplant had changed the Berlin patient's gene to a mutation called CCR5-delta32, which blocks HIV.
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