Funded by the amfAR Research Consortium on HIV Eradication (ARCHE)
Start of an international research consortium to reproduce the only successful case of a person cured of HIV
- European
researchers co-led by the Institute for AIDS Research IrsiCaixa, in
Barcelona, and the University Medical Center Utrecht (UMCU), in the
Netherlands, have initiated an ambitious project with the aim to
reproduce the only case of a person cured of HIV, the Berlin patient.
Experts from the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO),the Gregorio
Marañón Hospital, in Spain, the Oxford University, in the United
Kingdom, the University Medical Center Hamburg and Celle xGmbH, in
Germany are collaborators in this project.
- The
Berlin patient received a stem cell transplant from a donor naturally
resistant to the virus to treat him of leukemia in 2007. However, this
is a high-risk procedure, only indicated for patients with
life-threatening cancer disease. Doctors around the world have tried to
cure other patients with similar conditions, but no other patient has
been cured of HIV infection so far.
- The
international consortium, named EPISTEM, is sponsored by the amfAR
Research Consortium on HIV Eradication (ARCHE), a program from the US
Foundation for AIDS Research amfAR. The project aims to improve the
interventions to cure these patients and to better understand the
implication of stem cell transplants in the control and eradication of
HIV.
Read more
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More information:For more information you can contact
Antoinet van Kessel
A.vanKessel-4@umcutrecht.nl.
