The Essentia Blog

Take about 10 minutes out of your day today and read this article from the Wall Street Journal.  It may be the first signal flare that goes up about a possible cure for AIDS.  While the scientists involved are very cautious to look at the case as a possible one-off, an AIDS patient has shown no signs of the virus in his blood 600 days after recieving a bone marrow transplant for his AIDS-induced leukemia.

Turns out the donor had a naturally occurring genetic mutation that made him immune to most strains of HIV.  The mutation prevents a molecule called CCR5 from appearing on the surface of cells.  When this molecule appears on the surface of cells, it acts as a doorway for the virus to get in and destroy them.  A new AIDS drug, Selzentry, works off of this premise alone and doesn’t target HIV at all.