We don't have a cure for HI, for
HIV infection because the virus hides and can't be reached by drugs.
>> Correct. With our current technology.
>> With our current technology.
So let's talk about the search for cures, the search to try to overcome this.
>> Right. So that's been really exciting.
So I'll refer to the Berlin patient where sort of this idea sort of first started.
This is a patient who had hematological malignancy and
needed a bone marrow transplant.
>> Was it lymphoma?
>> I believe it was a leukemia.
>> Leukemia, yes.
>> And and it turned out that he had a very common haplotype, so he had multiple
donors that could donate bone marrow to him for his bone marrow transplant.
And so what they're able to do is go through each of these donors and look for
one that had the Delta32 mutation and the CCR5 co-receptor.
So CCR5 is required for HIV entry to T cells.
>> We'll explain that in a minute, okay?
>> Okay.
>> But the donor had that-
>> The donor had this mutation.
>> A mutation. >> A mutation, right.
So they gave the patient, so they gave, they era, they eliminated the patient's
immune system with chemotherapy, and then they rescued him by giving
the donor's bone marrow basically, and then that takes hold.
And then once those cells mature and form a new immune system,
this new immune system then is resistant to HIV entry into T cells.
>> Just to sort of repeat it.
The donor who had this mutation himself was
immune from HIV infection.
He, he was one of a very small group of people who have this mutation, and
the mutation protects him.
>> That's, that's correct.
>> And so now that the Berlin patient received this bone marrow transplant
with the same mutation, he was also successfully protected.
>> That's correct.
>> From HIV, even though he had previously been infected.
>> That's right, that's right.
>> So that was extremely exciting.
>> That's pretty exciting.
>> But with a very special circumstance.
>> That's right, that's right, and
now we have several years of followup on this particular individual, and
he still has not exhibited any evidence of viral replication, even off HIV medicine.
So it seems like a strategy that, that works.
>> And to be, to be clear, bone marrow transplant is so
difficult and so expensive.
And, and that it doesn't itself, doesn't represent a cure for that.
>> [LAUGH] >> Except in very special cases.
>> That's right.
>> Yeah. >> It's a very specialized circumstance.
It's such a, a traumatic [LAUGH] and-
>> Right. >> Expensive and
costly difficult process to go through.
It's not something that, that's commonly used for sure-
>> But it's exciting because there was some one cured.
>> Exactly. Right, and
so now we sort of have a proof of principle that this can be done, and so
can we look at this strategy and try to extrapolate to other situations.
So, another way that people have tried to use this information
is to take your own immune cells,
take them out of your body infect them with a virus that then mutates.
This is a gene therapy approach,
that would then mutate your receptors in your cells and then give them back to you.
And that approach has been tried, but
the problem there is that the cells are short-lived.
And so it's not sort of lasting type of treatment.
But people are working on other strategies-
>> [CROSSTALK] But the goal would be to get at least some cells into
your body with that mutation.
>> That's right.
>> And try to do it in such a way that those cells