Immunology Woman Seemingly Cured of HIV After Umbilical Cord Transplant - how is it possible?

Posted by: @morphism

Hello, everyone! Could you explain the biology behind this event? How is it possible?

Most likely , the CCR5 gene with the mutation was present in the donor 's stem cells . HIV infects lymphocytes by interacting with a receptor on their surface, which is encoded by the CCR5 gene. But a very small number of people have a mutation of the CCR5 gene that gives resistance to HIV, so it is a great luck that this resistance was not observed in a woman.

@ekaterina-gribacheva looks like that CRISP-CAS can affect the gene and we can get a cure?

I don't understand how this donor receptor mutation spread to the recipient's cells?

@argentum Why? The umbilical cord blood cells (from an unrelated newborn) replicated and eventually replaced the adult stem cells.

@morphism Yes, but as I said, many people are immune to this gene(

@morphism in embryos?

@argentum Looks like no, newborn means an infant.

@ekaterina-gribacheva sounds like a task for genetic engineering for me

@morphism again, it is not entirely clear how the genetic modification of cells occurs, by what mechanism

@argentum you mean that the process is not really a deterministic one? Could you explain in details what are the problems?

@morphism I lost the point, you asked how a woman was cured of HIV by an umbilical cord transplant. I ask the same thing, the mechanism was not clear on this. did you mean originally an adult woman in labor?

@argentum No, you got it right)

in the end it's still not clear

@argentum Unfortunately..