Girl close to dying from leukemia saved by HIV virus

Doctor Stephen Grupp of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia said on Tuesday that Emma Whitehead, who had undergone the experimental treatment in February after taking chemotherapy for almost two years, was treated at the hospital.

“We have really reached a point where the technology has just gotten to being able to treat patients successfully. The engineering of the T-cells is at a point where we can actually create T-cells… in a way that they can actually go into a patient and continue to grow within the patient and produce the immune response to destroy the cancer which is so incredibly important,” Dr. Grupp said.

The CTL019 therapy, which has been developed by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, uses a disabled HIV virus to reprogram the patient’s immune system to rout cancer cells.

“Our goal is absolutely to get this particular therapy to a point where it could actually be approved by the Food and Drug Administration and available at other hospitals,” Dr. Grupp stated.

Source : http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/12/12/277549/modified-hiv-saves-leukemia-patient/