US doctors defeat leukemia with modified HIV

 

After fighting her disease with chemotherapy for almost two years and suffering two relapses, the young girl "faced grim prospects," doctors at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia said.

 

So in February this year they agreed to take her on in an experimental program that fought fire with fire. Helped by a genetically altered HIV virus—stripped of its devastating properties that cause AIDS—doctors turned the girl's own immune cells into a superior force able to rout the "aggressive" leukemia.

 

Emily Whitehead was the first child and is one of only a handful of people in total to be given what's officially known as CTL019 therapy. The hospital stressed this could not yet be called "a magic bullet." However in her case at least the success was dramatic.

 

First, millions of the girl's natural immune system cells were removed. Then the modified HIV virus was used to carry in a new gene that would boost the immune cells and help them spot, then attack cancer cells that had previously been able to sneak in "under the radar," the hospital said on its website.

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