HIV is being used as a possible cure for cancer

A neat video about how researchers are using a modified HIV virus – yes, the virus that causes AIDS – to fight cancer.  In the case detailed in the video, a little girl named Emma is now in remission from leukemia as a result of the so-far successful treatment.

A reader who’s a doctor, Mark Thoma, MD, sent in his summary of the new treatment:

If you never thought you’d see the day when you’d appreciate HIV . . .

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania were looking for a way to stop tumor cell growth, or actively kill the tumor cells.  They had several patients (adults with chronic lymphocytic leukenia) and kids with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.  These patients had failed all previous standard chemotherapy treatments and would all have probably died in less than a 1 month.

Researchers at Penn had developed a technique to modify the patients’ own T-cells to turn them into what they called “serial killer” cells.  These serial killer T-cells could each kill approximately 1000 tumor cells that had the CD-19 antigen on them.  This antigen is found on the malignant lymphocytes in these leukemia patients.

More including the video at AmericaBlog