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AIDS 2016: Seeking a Cure, Doctors Document Bone Marrow Transplant Recipients with HIV

The "Berlin patient," Timothy Ray Brown, has now survived 7 years off antiretroviral therapy (ART) with no sign of HIV reappearing in his body, and as time passes his position as "the person cured of HIV" becomes more secure. However, participants at the 2016 Towards a Cure Symposium, held in advance of the recent 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016) in Durban, heard about the work of a consortium of physicians and researchers who are searching for, and documenting, the fates of patients with HIV who, like Brown, have been given stem cell transplants for cancer, in an effort to abolish Brown’s distinction as the only person to be cured of HIV.

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Coverage of 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016)

HIVandHepatitis.com coverage of the 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016), held July 18-22, in Durban, South Africa.

Conference highlights include PrEP and other biomedical HIV prevention, HIV cure research, experimental antiretroviral therapy, and access to treatment and prevention for key affected populations.

Full listing by topic

AIDS 2016 website

7/28/16

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amfAR Announces New Round of HIV Cure Research Grants

This month amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, announced that it has granted 7 awards for research on HIV persistence, the understanding of which could lead to new approaches to an HIV cure -- part of the organization's Countdown to a Cure for AIDS initiative.

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AIDS 2016: Young Women Treated Very Early Stay HIV Negative and Preserve Immune Function

A group of youngSouth African women who were diagnosed during very HIV early infection and immediately given antiretroviral therapy (ART) preserved their CD4 cell counts and the function of cells that HIV normally disrupts, according to a study presented at the 2016 Towards an HIV Cure Symposium, which preceded the 21st International AIDS Conference this week in Durban, South Africa. The majority of them never seroconverted, staying HIV-negative despite having evidence of low levels of HIV infection in their cells.

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Gene Therapy Snips HIV Out of Infected Cells and Makes Uninfected Cells Resistant

For the first time, researchers have used a gene-editing technique related to one already used to produce cells resistant to HIV infection to target HIV-infected cells. They have managed to remove HIV genes completely from infected cells, as shown by reductions in the cells' overall rate of HIV production. In cells not already infected, the therapy has itself become part of their genome, producing cells that are resistant to infection for a prolonged period, according to a report in a recent edition of Nature Scientific Reports.

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