Has BYU prof found AIDS cure?

[ECH1969]

Researchers, including a BYU scientist, believe they have found a new compound that could finally kill the HIV/AIDS virus, not just slow it down as current treatments do.

And, unlike the expensive, drug cocktails 25 years of research have produced for those with the deadly virus, the compound invented by Paul D. Savage appears to hunt down and kill HIV.

Although so far limited to early test tube studies, CSA-54, one of a family of compounds called Ceragenins (or CSAs), mimics the disease-fighting characteristics of anti-microbial and anti-viral agents produced naturally by a healthy human immune system.

Under a study sponsored by Ceragenix Pharmaceuticals, Savage and his colleagues developed and synthesized the compound for Vanderbilt University's School of Medicine. In his Nashville, Tenn., laboratories, Derya Unutmaz, an associate professor of Microbiology and Immunology, tested several CSAs for their ability to kill HIV.

http://www.sltrib.com/business/ci_3482712

[knight_of_the_star]

1. Wow

Now they just need to test for side effects, hopefully it isn't anything too debilitating.

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[megatherium]

35. No conspiracy.

The origins of the virus are well-understood. It's a retrovirus very similar to certain ape viruses, that found its way into the human population in Africa via the "bush meat" trade (humans got infected by butchering primates for the market). Then the virus eventually found its way into the gay communities of Europe and the US, where a pattern of promiscuous, unprotected sex "amplified" the virus; this happened in 1977, and the first men with AIDS appeared in clinics by 1981.

And there are candidate vaccines now in clinical trials, some of these might prove effective but no one knows yet. (The problem with vaccines for HIV is that the virus is highly variable, it is always mutating because of the inherently sloppy nature of its RNA genetic system.)

I know these conspiracy theories are popular in some circles, but I think they are unhelpful. I am afraid they might damage the credibility of those who espouse them. The only real conspiracy associated with AIDS was the deliberate neglect of the epidemic early on, as documented in The Band Played On by Randy Shilts. This neglect was in part because Reagan's advisors (Gary Bauer and I think Bill Bennett) decided that this was a disease of drug users and homosexuals, and that therefore the disease was a good thing as it would modify behavior. Reagan himself was pretty much clueless, and only became personally concerned when Rock Hudson died of AIDS. (It is known he asked his physician at that time what the story was about AIDS.)

[hedgehog]

50. And it's deja vue all over again right now

Yesterday I heard that the HIV rate in Washington DC was 5% (1 in 20). Up to now the US government has pretty much ignored AIDS as it has smoldered in the Gay community and the IV drug community. Lately it has been breaking into the black community and I would suggest once it gets a foot hold there it will spread into the larger white community. I fear we are very close to a tipping point.

[megatherium]

53. My impression is that half of all new infections in the US are now

happening in the African-American and Hispanic communities. This is scary -- folks need to know what gay men have known for two decades: safer sex is an absolute necessity. All the virus needs to spread is a population that has a high enough rate of promiscuity. But too many people think you only get it through anal sex, or simply that only injective drug users or homosexuals get it. There are people out there still talking about the "myth" of heterosexual AIDS. But the high rates of infection in Africa put the lie to that years ago.

[Posteritatis]

46. Bit hard to out-side-effect death, but yeah. (n/t)

[KyuzoGator]

2. Thank God for science.

But obviously, science is promoting the gay agenda here.

[lindisfarne]

21. And it's a BYU scientist!

[AlGore-08.com]

38. Working at Vanderbilt!

eom

[BlueEyedSon]

39. So god is promoting the gay agenda? I'm so CONFUSED.....nt

[KyuzoGator]

40. I was being sarcasmic. nt

And yes, I know I spelled it wrong.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. naturally by a healthy human immune system.

don't think that there aren't supplements out there that can kick the innate immune system back into high gear and clear this virus all by its lonesome. Glad to hear that they are on the correct track now, finally.

[Jackpine Radical]

14. Not to mention psychological techniques such as visualization.

[Liberal Veteran]

23. Okay...let me just scoff for a moment....

While I don't suggest there are no benefits to good nutrition, supplements, and psychological well being.....I ain't about to trade my daily doses of emtricitabine, tenofovir, and efavirenz and think I am gonna last more than a year at the most.

Been there, done that...got the AIDS diagnosis (along with a nasty case of pneumonia, wasting syndrome, and esophageal candiasis) for my troubles.

[Jackpine Radical]

42. I hardly mean to suggest that methods such as visualization

are any kind of panacea or anything. Nevertheless, there have been studies showing that meditation can reduce blood pressure in hypertensives, that immune-system visualization results in significantly longer & better lives for cancer patients, that simple group-administered stress reduction interventions result in 40-50% fewer heart attacks in high-risk populations, etc.

[mopinko]

51. got a link?

to a reputable source? 40-50% reduction in heart attacks? that is pure horse hockey.

[IndyOp]

56. I don't have a reference to 40-50% reduction, but Dean Ornish's

"LifeStyle" program that includes diet, exercise and meditation can reverse heart disease - not just prevent second attacks, but actually reduce cholesterol deposits in arteries. Ornish has emphasized that the meditation is not just an afterthought, it is a key.

Here are studies about the effects of meditation alone:

Transcendental Meditation Can Help Ward Off Stroke

Close Your Eyes and Say Om: Meditation Can Help Prevent Heart Attacks and Strokes Reductions in atherosclerosis were seen in 16 of 20 (80%) people on the (meditation) program, 5 of 9 (55%) people on the (diet and exercise) intervention program, and 7 of 14 (50%) people who had no intervention.

Can Meditation Help Lower My Cholesterol?

[Jackpine Radical]

58. I can't find an online link but Redford Williams gives a popular-level

account of the effect in his book Anger Kills. The studies I'm thinking of were part of the Recurrent Coronary Prevention Project, which was a large-scale, longitudinal study of heart attacks conducted by the Duke University medical school & the findings were published in many sequential papers between the '70's & 90's, and none of them are online. I found them at the UW Med School & read through everything that had been published in that area up through about 1992. The particular finding I'm thinking of was one of those published by Williams (a psychiatrist) & John Barefoot (a psychologist), in which they reported a 43% reduction per annum in second heart attacks in an experimental group that received group psychotherapy.

I expect you will be going to your nearest med school & digging through the cardiology journals to check me out on this. You can get back to me with your apology on that "horse hockey" remark after you've checked out the findings.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

55. Better yet....

http://www.glycoexpert.com/glyconutrients_offer_real_hope.htm


"Glyconutrients have proven to be effective in the fight against HIV/AIDS,' said the Honourable Edith Grace Ssempala, the Ugandan ambassador to the United States". Recently Dr Ben Akenga a well-respected Kenyan surgeon said "The use of glyconutrients is one of the most critical strategies for supporting the body's normal healing functions,". 'We have had tremendous success using glyconutrients while treating people infected with HIV/AIDS in Kenya."

Dr Akenga said that the patients that he treated with glyconutrients were in terminal stages with many clinical manifestations of HIV/AIDS along with many of its complications. They were bed-ridden and were brought to the hospital to die while their families made funeral arrangements, he said. 'To my amazement and to the amazement of my colleagues, all of the patients who were treated with glyconutrients were up and walking within two to three weeks,' he said. 'In the 15 years that I have been dealing with the virus, I had never seen anything like this. They were discharged from the hospital and prescribed anti-retroviral drugs which they had not been given earlier because of their weakened medical conditions.' Speaking about

Glyconutrients which are offered by Amatsuhealth, founder Sukh Padda said: "I'm not at all surprised that glyconutrients have been found to be beneficial in the fight against AIDS and HIV. These are really a remarkable group of nutrients also known as the 8 essential sugars. The only place in nature that you will naturally find the combination of all 8 of these sugars is in breast milk that just shows you how significant they are with Mother Nature ensuring that we get these sugars as soon as we are born! The sugars place a crucial role in cell to cell communication for example one symptom of cell to cell miss -communication can be infertility where a sperm cell does not recognise an egg cell.

[TheWraith]

62. Relaxation reduces tension. Film at eleven!

Relaxation reduces blood pressure in people with hypertension... Seriously, this is news? Or worse yet, that it's considered hard evidence of the efficiency of some of these new agey "cures"... I'm far from the best friend of conventional medicine, but some of this stuff is just wrong, and people are preaching it as being real science. Meditation and herbal therapies can't cure AIDS. A lot of people have tried that route, and died quickly as a result. But there's always someone willing to step up and push meditation and echinacea as a guaranteed cure-all to everything from the common cold to SARS.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

54. Link, you figure it out for yourself... not being smart, but I am sure

there is something here for you, and you, and you, and anyone else with almost any problem. www.glycoexpert.com

[HysteryDiagnosis]

32. When I think of that.... and consider its effects.... I think of the

what the bleep site, and the double slit experiment, both are equally unfathomable and true.

[NickB79]

45. HIV eats a healthy immune system for lunch

The virus actually infects and inhabits the killer T-cells of the immune system that are supposed to destroy viruses. It hunts the hunters.

Supplements that kick innate immune reactions back on are worthless because by the time you have HIV/AIDS, your immune system is destroyed. There is virtually nothing left to kick back into high gear.

[PinkUnicorn]

61. Slight correction

HIV goes after the helper-T cells, which form the basis of the communication system for the immune system. I'll try a rough analogy if I may...

When a macrophage (killers) finds a intruder, it kills it and notifies a Helper-T cell to begin an immune response. The helper-T notifies a Helper-B cell to begin producing antibodies. The antibodies then attach to intruders, thus signaling their location for killers to home in on. HIV infects and kills Helper-Ts, essentially shooting the messenger thus the alert signal never gets through. The guards are screaming 'Alarm' but the coordinators are sitting around scratching themselves as they never got the message. And of course without co-ordination the immune response is lackluster and ineffective against a rapidly multiplying virus.

The lack of communication also permits other infections to take hold as the immune system now wont activate for any threat as the messengers are dead. Even if the immune system was 'kicked into high gear', without co-ordination it will just bumble around killing the odd virus here and there by sheer luck, and all the while the virus is replicating. And it could even be dangerous - a immune system running wild without a target is begging for trouble.

Ironically, breaking the immune system is exactly what we do with immuno-suppressants in organ transplants.

[NMDemDist2]

4. please make it so! this would be so wonderful

:bounce:

[Liberal Veteran]

5. Sounds interesting, but I'm not going to get my hopes up.

There have been any number of "test tube studies" that showed promise and never made past that.

Still, you never know.

[rooboy]

6. I guess Jesus loves fags after all...

:sarcasm:

[Occulus]

8. OH just watch

Fundies will object to the cure for many of the same reasons they object to the cervical cancer drug that was posted here a while back...

[DJ MEW]

7. This is just the first step

we can celebrate later when they have a treatment that has proved to cure monkeys of the virus. Until they are doing clinical trials I won't believe it.

Even if this new study turns out to be it, how many average americans, and humans for that matter, are going to be able to afford this treatment. I am sure Abbot Laboratories or Pfizer or someone is going to make sure they make money on this somehow.

[BreweryYardRat]

28. Yeah. Reading "no animal trials yet" was a bummer.

I was going to recommend Ceragenix stock to my family, too.

On a less capitalistic note...if this works, it'll change the world to an amazing extent.

[MuseRider]

9. Please let this be true

and let them find that is does work.

Thanks for the link.

[VegasWolf]

10. but, but, but what will Pat Robertson and the Evangelicals say? nt

[fob]

11. Hopefully yes, then can we get this guy to find a cure for bush*lovers?

nt

[Earth_First]

12. There's no profit in curing disease...

somehow some intelligent design creature(s) will debunk this as junk science and the lead researcher will experience a suicide and his home will spontaneously combust with his his years worth of research...

Yet seriously, this is great news!

[northzax]

15. are you kidding? do you know what this really is?

(although I don't buy it yet) this is a cure for viruses. The flu, cold, herpes, HIV, Ebola...you name it. There has never been a proven case of a pharmeceutical killing a virus inside a living creature. this is the holy grail, more impressive, frankly, than a cure for cancer. Killing a virus in situ would be the most important medical discovery since Fleming found some useful mold in his petri dish.

which is why I am skeptical until we see peer review. Without peer review it's nothing.

[knight_of_the_star]

19. I hope it's true

If this turns out to be THE cure, imagine what it will do for society. I really hope this is it.

[northzax]

22. as I said, wait for the peer review

anyone can send out a press release (and the company that produced it, Ceragenix Pharmaceuticals went up 122% today.)

Here's the Five day chart.
http://ichart.finance.yahoo.com/w?s=CGXP.OB

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

37. Time to short us some Ceragenix...

...even if it is true, that'll be back down shortly. :)

[megatherium]

33. I am especially skeptical because the reason HIV is hard to get rid of is

that it splices its own genetic information into the cells it infects, so to get rid of the HIV you must get rid of the infected cells. At first it was thought that HIV only infected certain kinds of immune system cells, but later it became clear that it infects a variety of cells in the body, some of which live for decades. The current drugs are capable of shutting down replication of HIV completely, but they do not kill infected cells. So when the current drugs are stopped, the virus quickly rebounds. Nowhere in the article is it mentioned that the their drug can kill infected cells.

[Jackpine Radical]

59. In fact, it may BE a cure for cancer.

My mind took the same path as yours in terms of the potential generalizability of the discovery. Certrainly at least some cancers are of viral origins.

[iconoclastNYC]

43. Sure there is.

Antibiotics CURE diseases, and there are plenty of companies who profit from them.

The company that owns the patent on the AIDS cure will make hundreds of millions, if not billions from the discovery.

[Posteritatis]

47. And it isn't like new diseases don't pop up regularly anyway.

Short of actually discovering real panimmunity treatments and gengineering the entire biosphere into human control, there will always, always, always be something else to cure.

[The Wielding Truth]

57. Doesn't it remind you of terrorism - a perpetual corporate money maker.

[Posteritatis]

60. Not really, since the diseases emerge on their own. (n/t)

[The Wielding Truth]

63. Gee. I really thought that HIV was engineered. Am I wrong?

[Posteritatis]

64. Well.. yeah. (n/t)

[Bridget Burke]

71. Yes.

Diseases happen.

HIV would not have killed so many if proper steps had been taken in time. But the government ignored it since "only" gays were affected. Now HIV is more manageable--but too many cannot afford treatment.

[0007]

13. Time will tell!

[Opusnone]

16. Anyone who can't get laid the day they cure all viruses

probably looks like me.

[HuffleClaw]

17. if so, he needs to start packing for a trip to oslo.

that would be the medical story of a lifetime.

[truthisfreedom]

18. wow.

just wow.

[DavidMS]

20. I will believe it when it gets published in a peer reviewed journal

Then I will celebrate!

And yes, the fundies will try to block its commeritalization. Because they will have less FUD to spread.

[wiley]

25. That makes over 1500 compounds now

with a theoretical pre-clinical ability to cure AIDS. Almost all don't make it past animal studies, if the company is even able to synthesize a stable compound. This is very typical of the type of press releases that come out during a major scientific conference. Retrovirus is now taking place in Denver. Info is flying around. This was not accepted for reason that there would be a thousand reports on pre-clinical miracles if they were allowed. This could easily be a new version of interferon.

But, here's hoping just one makes it through.

[CreekDog]

27. I guess this puts BYU ahead of Univ. of Utah

The latter's claim to fame being the infamous "Cold Fusion" experiments of the late 80's/early 90's.

[EVDebs]

26. ECH1969, do you own any stock in the company mentioned ?

Someone has to ask....

[LisaL]

29. Sounds like a lot of hype. It's not even published yet.

And early test tube studies is not exactly the same as showing it kills HIV in humans.

[Sgent]

30. Wasn't BYU

the university where they had cold fusion?

Lets see the peer reviewed and REPLICATED literature before getting too excited.

[freedomworks]

70. Vanderbilt University's peer review

Seriously, man, Vanderbilt University chemistry professor verified it.

"Dr. Derya Unutmaz, Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, tested several CSAs in his laboratory for their ability to kill HIV directly. "

See: www.csa54.info.

[file83]

31. I'll believe it when there is no more AIDS/HIV, not just an article.

[Nothing Without Hope]

34. I'm skeptical. "Hunt down and kill" a virus? And no animal studies?

Sounds way too preliminary to bang such a loud drum - except to send up the stock value. Which it has.

Meanwhile, people will be begging for this "miracle drug" long before it is available even in clinical trials, if it ever is.

This sounds like a cynical corporate PR manuever to me. I hope I'm wrong, but I feel it's far too early to be more than cautiously intrigued by this drug. Worth watching, but not something to put a lot of hope in at this early stage. Hell, it's not even a careful, peer-reviewed study.

[patcox2]

36. Hey, it was a BYU prof who discovered that "cold fusion."

Remember, cold fusion, that breakthrough that solved all our energy problems and freed us from our reliance on fossil fuels?

Must be something in the water there in Salt Lake, that makes so many of the people engage in wholesale fraud.

[freedomworks]

66. Re: Cold Fusion

Cold fusion came out of the University of Utah, a state-run college.
BYU is owned by the LDS Church.

[classics]

41. Two words

Pump & dump.

[TrogL]

44. Get ready for the next Sexual Revolution

if this really is the cure for HIV/AIDS and doesn't have any really nasty side effects, we will see a new Sexual Revolution that will make the previous one (I lived through it, it was great) look like two kids playing doctor.

The previous sexual revolution was kicked off by the invention and wide distribution of the birth control pill coupled with reliable cures for most STD's.

[slackmaster]

49. Herpes was bad enough for me to rein in my behavior

I've always been very careful, except for that two-year period after my divorce.

[Bridget Burke]

67. Ah, back when life was simplex!

(not original)

[slackmaster]

69. OK, you brightened up my morning with that

Thanks!

:toast:

[DIKB]

52. You may be right.

If this works, as well as the fact that they have found a vaccine for genital wart assisted cervical cancer. Seems the big thing fundamentalists can use as scare tactics will be Herpes and pregnancy.

[triguy46]

48. Let's hope this is not another "cold fusion" discovery. n/t

[freedomworks]

65. Re: Has BYU prof found AIDS cure?

There's more about this:

Vanderbilt University, Brigham Young University, and Ceragenix Pharmaceuticals Report Novel Drug Compound Kills Multiple HIV Strains; Synthetic Small Molecule Acts Through Unique Strain-Independent Virucidal Mechanism...

Read the rest (and others) at www.csa-54.info.

[Bridget Burke]

68. BYU itself is urging caution (from your link)

BYU spokesman Grant Madsen cautioned against unrealistic hype concerning the compound, noting that the tests were conducted in test tubes and not in animals or humans. He said the researchers will probably either continue to recreate the original tests or begin testing on animals.

"Although any possible treatment is still a long way off, we're encouraged by these early studies of Dr. Savage's compounds and look forward to more research in this area," Madsen said.

In an interview with Salt Lake Tribune reporter Bob Mims, Savage reiterated Madsen's concerns about misleading publicity.

"We have some preliminary but very exciting results," Savage said. "We would like to formally show this before making any claims that would cause unwanted hype."

Definitely an interesting development. But further investigation is definitely needed.