Is HIV The Cure To Cancer? - Doctors Cure Man Of Leukemia By Injecting Him With HIV

A man who was diagnosed with an extremely aggressive form of cancer two years ago is now amazingly in remission thanks to a revolutionary treatment that involved receiving an infusion of the virus that causes AIDS. Marshall Jensen of Utah, was one of 30 leukemia patients to undergo a trial treatment at Penn Medicine recently, in which white blood cells are implanted with a harmless form of HIV programmed to target and kill cancer.

The 30-year-old married father of one has so far responded well to the treatment and is now cancer-free for the first time in years. Jensen, wife Amanda and their young son Kezman have been travelling the country ever since he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 2012, just one year after their marriage, searching for an effective treatment for his cancer.

'They were a young couple. They weren’t married very long. They had a brand new little baby when all of this started,' neighbor Lindsay Wright told KSL. The Jensens didn't find success though until they met Dr Carl June at Penn Medicine. Dr June and his team of physicians have spent two decades working on a breakthrough experimental treatment using the HIV virus.

The connection between leukemia and HIV was first discovered in 2006, when an HIV-positive man named Timothy Wood was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. After receiving a bone marrow transplant from a donor with a rare genetic mutation, Wood's cancer went into remission and the HIV disappeared from his system making him the first man to ever be fully cured of the virus.

Since then, Dr June and his team have been working vigilantly on developing a HIV-based treatment for leukemia and this October, published a study showing the therapy's success on 30 cancer patients.

The patients who received the treatment had billions of T-cells extracted from their body, which were taken to a lab and implanted with deactivated HIV. The 'serial killer' cells are then put back into the body to fight and kill cancer, and remain dormant until the cancer reappears.

While the idea of receiving a dose of HIV may seem scary to some, Dr June says there's nothing to fear about the stripped-down virus used in the treatment. 'It's a disabled virus, but it retains the one essential feature of HIV, which is the ability to insert new genes into cells,' Dr June explained.

Of the 30 leukemia patients who received the treatment, comprised of five adults and 25 children, 23 are still alive and 19 are in remission.

Source: MailOnline