Longevity science

Two men with HIV have been off AIDS drugs for several months after receiving stem-cell transplants for cancer that appear to have cleared the virus from their bodies, researchers reported on Wednesday.

Both patients, who were treated in Boston and had been on long-term drug therapy to control their HIV, received stem-cell transplants after developing lymphoma, a type of blood cancer.

Scientists have vaccinated pregnant cows, in order to get them to produce HIV-inhibiting antibodies in their milk.

Cows cannot contract HIV themselves. But they do produce antibodies in response to the invader. The milk that is first produced when a calf is born has a high level of antibodies (to protect the newborn from infection). This milk contained HIV antibodies when the cows were given HIV vaccines while pregnant.

If the scientists can formuilate a cream using this milk, it could be used to protect against the spread of HIV.

One of the biggest problems in treating HIV patients is the amount of daily individual medications it takes to keep the virus at bay. In a new study, scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have engineered a new approach to tailored gene therapy that they say makes key cells of the immune system resistant to attack from the HIV virus, which may eventually lead to the removal of life-long dependencies on drugs for patients living with HIV.

A clinical trial testing a gene therapy for HIV patients is now 11 years old. Recently, the researchers running the study published an examination of the patients after all this time.

Of the study’s 43 patients, all were healthy, and 41 of them confirmed that their immune cells which received a genetically-altered boost were still performing as hoped more than a decade after the initial infusions...