Found it in yahoo. Stem-cell science paid off.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110603/us_yblog_thelookout/first-man-functionally-cured-of-hiv
This is huge news. Even though its not a "cure" as such as it cant be applied to all those infected with the disease it certainly opens up a total area of research which can use this man as evidence to help with funding. It may also help with research into cancer using people who are less susceptible to the growth of cancers to help those who are more susceptible.
Most interesting.
That's really cool 8)
I blogged about this ages ago when the news was first released. It's a pity it took so long to make it into mainstream media. It really is a massive medical breakthrough, even though they essentially had to replace his entire immune system, which isn't an efficient cure just yet.
Read about it in a science mag...
While it is nice that HIV can be "functionally cured" and the technology is fascinating, I am a bit of two minds about this... The thing is, as I see it, as long as humans multiply the way we do, we kinda' need some diseases to keep the population in check and HIV makes quite an effort on that front.
The donor had a mutation CCR5Delta32 which changes the shape of particular proteins on T cells thereby not letting the virus gain entry into the cell. This mutation has been known about since the 90s. I remember mentioning it here a long while back but hadn't heard much about it in the last few years.