(PhysOrg.com) -- The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is
widely treated using highly active antiretroviral therapy
(HAART), which patients must continue throughout their lives.
Now a new study suggests the patients’ own stem cells could be
genetically modified and then transplanted back into their
bodies to give them a single administration therapy, given once
and lasting for life. This could avoid the costs and the toxic
side effects of the traditional HAART. Gene therapy had been
investigated before but the new genetic material lasted only a
few months to a year. The new research, carried out by a team
led by John Rossi, a molecular geneticist from the City of Hope
cancer center in Duarte, California, has found the new genetic
material was still in the blood up to two years after the
transplants. The research results follow a report last year of
the “Berlin patient,” who received a stem cell transplant to
treat leukemia. The transplant came from the bone marrow of a
donor who was found to have a mutation