Doctors claim to have "functional cure" for HIV

This story -- which is no doubt remarkable -- seems to make the rounds frequently both on mainstream news and HN:

  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=357144
  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=478354
  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=678857
  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1139637
  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2002843
  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2004448
  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2005318
  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2006975
  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2007580
  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2554536
  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2617358

>"The Berlin Patient," as Brown is known, received stem cells from a donor who was immune to HIV. In fact, about one percent of Caucasians are immune to HIV. Some say it goes back to the Great Plague; People who survived the plague developed an immunity, and that immunity was passed down to their heirs today.

Immune to HIV. That's news to me, so i decided to do a bit of research.

The gene responsible for this immunity is CCR5-Δ32. It blocks a receptor in white blood cells; not allowing the virus to attach. The original patent for finding this gene is awarded to a Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York.

The HIV virus first binds with the CCR4 protein, and later CCR5. A mutation in the CCR5 prevents the virus from infecting T-Cells and is what causes this immunity.

"A person obtaining two mutated CCR5 genes will be immune to the HIV virus. However, someone containing one mutated CCR5 gene will be resistant to HIV but not necessarily immune. If a person with one mutated CCR5 gene becomes infected the infection tends to have a more lethargic course of infection, than someone without a mutated CCR5 gene."[1]

The gene is found in a lot of Swedes, but decreases as one moves deeper into Northern Europe. Approximately 10% of Europeans have the mutated CCR5-Δ32 gene. I found that especially interesting, seeing as the patient in this article received the marrow transplant in Germany; as opposed to the US or otherwise.

I think HIV/AIDS is a very interesting virus. The new small pox of sorts.

[1] https://sharepoint.cisat.jmu.edu/isat/klevicca/Web/Case_Stud...

This has been posted before? It's about a patient who was given a bone marrow, stem cell transplant that "had astounding results".