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8/13/2019 ddPCR helps prove baby cured of HIV.pdf
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PCR IN VIRUS RESEARCH: BABYS HIV
INFECTION APPARENTLY CURED
POSTED ON MARCH 13, 2013 BY SUZANNE
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The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has played a role in the first ever documented
caseof a child infected with HIV apparently being cured.
The childs mother was HIV positive, though she wasnt aware of this until she was
tested while in labour, and the child, born in Mississippi, was diagnosed with HIV
infection at birth, using standard HIV DNA PCR and plasma viral load. When a
pregnant woman is known to be HIV positive, she is usually given antiretroviral drugs
to prevent her from passing the infection on to the baby, but in this case, it was too
close to birth for it to work.
Unusually, the baby received an aggressive course of three antiretroviral drugs from
30 hours after birth. Even though the mother stopped giving the drugs to the child
after 18 months, when the child came back into hospital at 23 months, the viral load
was undetectable, even with a battery of the most sensitive tests available, including
ultrasensitive HIV DNA droplet digital PCR, plasma viral load (single copy) assays, and
quantitative co-culture assays.
The childs paediatrician in Mississippi was aware of the work we were doing, and
quickly notified our team as soon as this young patients case came to her attention,said Rowena Johnston, sponsor amfARsvice president and director of research.
Source: NIH, redrawn by Carl
Henderson
The negative result came as a surprise to the doctors, as they had expected that the
viral levels would have risen significantly, and has been described as a functional cure
(when standard tests can find no virus but it is likely that a trace remains in the
body).
The researchers believe that this unnamed baby now has the chance of a healthy life
without having to rely on anti-HIV medication. This is a single case so no firm
conclusions can be drawn. However, it appears that the early treatment stopped HIV
from infecting the CD4 cells, the white blood cells that harbour HIV long-term.
If the results can be replicated, this case in Mississippi could point to a potential low-
cost approach to treating HIV infection in newborns. However, there is an ethical
issue with taking babies and children off effective therapies, and the best approach
will still be prevention. Treating pregnant women with antivirals can prevent 98-99%
of infections in newborns.
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PCR in virus research:
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8/13/2019 ddPCR helps prove baby cured of HIV.pdf
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In adult patients, the CD4 cells are generally already infected at diagnosis, and lead
to re-infection when treatment is stopped, so the approach that worked in the baby
would not be appropriate. So, despite the media flurry surrounding this case, while
knowing more about the babys immune response could potentially lead to new
strategiesfor treatments and perhaps even cures, these are still a very long way off.
There has been one documented case of an HIV cure in an adult Timothy Brown,
also known as the Berlin patient. He was diagnosed with leukaemia while being
treated for HIV, and received a stem cell transplant from a patient with a mutation
that leads to immunity to HIV infection, apparently treating both his leukaemia and
his HIV.
Suzanne Elvidge is a freelance science, biopharma, business and health writer with
more than 20 years of experience. She is editor of Genome Engineering, a blog that
monitors the latest developments in genome engineering and that aims to educate
(and sometimes to entertain!) and has written for a range of online and print
publications including FierceBiomarkers, FierceDrugDelivery, European Life Science,
the Journal of Life Sciences (now the Burrill Report), In Vivo, Life Science Leader,
Nature Biotechnology, PR Week and Start-Up. She specialises in writing on
pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, healthcare, science, lifestyle and green living, but
can write on any topic given enough tea and chocolate biscuits. She lives just beyond
the neck end of nowhere in the Peak District with her second-hand bookseller
husband and two second-hand cats.
Tags: AIDSantiretroviral drugsCD4 cellscuredroplet digital PCRfunctional cureHIV
DNAHIV infectionPCRpolymerase chain reactionviral loadvirus research
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