The trial of a potential HIV cure is underway. The scientists involved hope for initial results toward the end of the year. One of them also has stark warnings about the threat to humanity of future pandemics. He believes that, as seen with HIV and monkeypox, gay men could be the “canary in the coal mine.”
Dr. Marcus A. Conant is a consultant dermatologist whose career pre-dates the first cases of AIDS in the US. He’s now Chief Medical Officer for the biotech company, American Gene Technologies (AGT). It’s been working for the past few years on a groundbreaking HIV cure.
Rather than medication, AGT uses gene technology to boost the capacity of the body’s own immune cells to fight HIV.
A tiny number of individuals are genetically resistant to the effects of HIV. There are cases where people with HIV have undergone a bone marrow transplant and inherited the gene-resistant immune cells from such individuals. This has cured them of HIV.
However, a bone marrow transplant is a risky procedure. Doctors only consider it when someone is fighting a terminal, blood-related cancer like leukemia. It is not a practical, widespread treatment for HIV when medication for the disease already exists.
Instead, AGT wants to use gene technology to produce the same effect. Its process involves removing some white blood cells from an HIV-positive patient and then inserting a gene that modifies them. This enables the cells to stop HIV replication.
Using gene therapy as a potential HIV cure
Hundreds of thousands of the HIV-resistant CD4 T-cells are then infused back into the patient, where they can duplicate and—hopefully—fight HIV.
In 2020, the FDA gave approval for AGT to start a trial involving seven patients. Those patients have had their own genetically-modified T-cells (AGT103-T) infused back into them.
None experienced any negative side effects from the infusion, meaning the trial has now proceeded to its next stage. Some of the participants have had their antiretroviral treatment stopped. They are being closely monitored to see if their viral loads remain undetectable.
Related: New study says HIV has a “significant” impact on aging process
Dr. Conant is not able to give Queerty any advance insight into the trial’s results when we catch up with him via the phone. It’s been kept under wraps until later this year. However, he does say that he and his team are already planning a larger trial.
“It’s what science has always done,” he explains. “You ask, ‘Well which part of it is working? Why do we think that’s working? And how do we make that work better?’
“When AZT came out in 1987, it only worked just minimally. We were able to demonstrate that it was barely prolonging the lives of patients.
“Now here we are 30 years later, with drugs that can suppress the virus essentially to levels so low that patients can have unprotected sex and they don’t transmit the virus. That’s an amazing advance. But it was achieved by asking, ‘What can we do to make it work better?’”
“So there will now be another study, probably in 30-50 patients. My staff and I are designing that study as we speak, to take what we learn from this and treat more patients. We will tweak it to make it even better.”
HIV cure eludes science for more than four decades
Gene therapy has been used to treat several conditions over the past 20 years. This includes severe combined immune deficiency syndrome (SCID) and the eye condition, retinitis pygmantosa.
However, this is the first time it’s been used as a potential treatment for HIV. If it works, it would be groundbreaking.
HIV has proved stubbornly resistant to a cure. It’s something Conant is only too well aware of. He has been working in the field since the early 1980s. As a dermatologist, he saw some of the first cases of men with Kaposi’s Sarcoma (KS) – one of the rare cancers that became the hallmark of AIDS before treatment became available.
Conant was a junior professor at UC San Francisco in 1981. He still vividely remembers seeing his first KS case in April that that year. It was a couple of months before the CDC issued its first public warning of an illness affecting gay men.
Related: Makers of once-every-six-months HIV treatment file for FDA approval
HIV, monkeypox and the threat of more pandemics
Because of his experience with HIV, Conant said he felt a sense of déjà vu when he heard of this year’s monkeypox outbreak. Cases in the US have now exceeded 23,000 and the majority are gay men.
Conant says the world must be better prepared for such outbreaks.
“The first thing you see in any epidemic is denial: ‘It can’t happen to us.’
“The second thing you always see is: Someone to blame. And that’s exactly what we saw with HIV/AIDS. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing now with monkeypox: ‘Oh, those gay guys, if they weren’t so promiscuous then the disease would never have happened.’
“No,” he affirms. “The disease was going to happen. It just happened in a special group first. Instead of people blaming the gay community, they should realize this is an opportunity to realize that we’re going to have more and more of these zoonotic diseases, which jump from animals to humans.
“The gay community may well be the first group in which we see this, or in whom we frequently first see this.
“Why is that? Because gay men have opportunities to travel far more frequently than their straight brothers who are raising children and staying at home and don’t have the luxury of being able to pick up any time they want to and go to a party in Spain.
“So all of that is very much like the canary in the coal mine. What’s happening in the gay community is a warning to society: ‘We’ve got a problem here.’
“In the last 40 years we’ve had HIV, you had Ebola, you had Zika, you had Covid, and now monkeypox. That’s five off the top, just in my lifetime, and this is going to continue because people are traveling more.”
Conant agrees with other scientists who say global warming will increase the likelihood of pandemics. Rising temperatures are causing viruses to spread out of their previous habitats.
International solutions to global outbreaks
Conant wants to see a far more international solution to outbreaks, rather than countries just doing their own thing. After all, viruses have no respect for borders.
He also thinks governments must take more steps to allow individuals to isolate themselves when necessary.
“They tell gay men who have the disease, ‘Well go home and isolate.’ In America, a gay man can’t go home and isolate,” he says.
“Sure, you can order in all your food, but if he doesn’t have an income, he can maybe order the food in for a week, and then he’s running out of money. We don’t have an infrastructure set up that makes ‘go home and isolate’ a practical solution.
“If we don’t come up with some way to handle these diseases, we are facing a potential disaster,” he continues. Both Covid and monkeypox have a relatively low mortality rate. He warns that if a disease came along that killed—say—40% of the people who acquired it, “we are going to see societies collapse.”
“We should have learned from AIDS,” says Conant. “Forty years ago, AIDS was the first real clear warning that ‘hey, we need better policies for handling problems like this,’ and we learned nothing. And here we are, after one disease after another, and we respond to each one as if it’s a one-off and it will never happen again.”
David Hudson is a contributing editor at Queerty. Follow him on Twitter at @davidhudson_uk
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Vince
It’s amazing seeing the evolution in science. We’re at the brink of a whole new definition of treating diseases.
They’ll either have a total success or partial. Much like having hepatis B or something where your immune system keeps it at bay. Either way good news.
The only issue I have with this treatment is how much is it going to cost. Can’t be cheap.
tomamundo
No, nothing is cheap in a for profit healthcare system.
[email protected]
Yes but way cheaper than a lifetime of medication
Carlos Primero
Also canary in the coal mine for any nascent authoritarian movement.
ethan_hines
If HIV had affected heterosexuals as much as MSM we wouldn’t have had a covid pandemic because we would have discovered broad spectrum antivirals by now (which we still don’t have but are a logical discovery since we do have broad spectrum antibiotics)
JanDivine
I mostly agree with you. HIV is a trick virus though as are most viruses. Most people with HIV are straight. I also don’t think we learned anything from the HIV pandemic because of our social systems, religion, prejudice, politics, etc. We only seeing the beginning of many pandemics to come, We have a lot of work to do.
bachy
Although I admire this doctor’s work and agree with his assessment, it bothers me when gay men are fingered as the originators of disease. Aside from AIDS, the most devastating diseases of the 20th and 21st centuries had nothing to do with homosexuality.
Tuberculosis: Spitting and Cup-Sharing
Tuberculosis was spread by the widespread habit of cup-sharing and spitting in public spaces. At the end of the 19th century, one in seven people around the world had died of TB. The “War on Tuberculosis” public health campaign discouraged cup-sharing and prompted states to ban spitting inside public buildings, transit, sidewalks and other outdoor spaces, encouraging the use of special spittoons, to be carefully cleaned on a regular basis. Spitting and cup-sharing eventually came to be seen as uncouth.
Spanish Flu: Crowded Conditions
Spanish Flu was determined to have started in Kansas in March of 1918. The one factor that facilitated the transmission of the disease was crowded conditions. In urban areas, people were moving to cities so that they could find jobs and assist with the war efforts. People were living in very close quarters; sharing beds and bathroom facilities. Soldiers were also in crowded situations. Young men moved from towns to training bases and then to Europe which allowed the infection to move from camp to camp and then globally.
Polio: Increasingly Clean Conditions
Polio was one of the most feared diseases of the 20th century. In the late 1940’s, polio outbreaks in the US increased in frequency and size, crippling an average of more than 35,000 people each year.
For centuries, natural protection from polio was passed down through the generations. Mothers who had survived polio infection themselves passed on immunity to their babies in the womb and through breast milk. But the unforeseen consequence of better hygiene and sanitation at the end of the 1800s was that babies in clean surroundings stopped encountering the infection while they still had maternal immunity. So they failed to develop their own long-term immunity and were not protected when they encountered the disease later in life.
COVID-19: Exotic “Foodies”
Research evidence suggests that the virus originated in bats. It then spread from infected civets and infected dromedary camels to people. Many believe it was transmitted first in “wet markets” among what could be called exotic “foodies” in Asia. In just 6 short months, the world became a very different place as coronavirus disease brought countries to a standstill, pushed hospital systems to the brink, and dragged the global economy into what was the worst recession since World War II. Older people who have existing chronic medical conditions tend to have a higher risk of serious illness.
KetynPorta
Right or wrong just like Billie Holiday singing.
Must have to lower the arrogance of the Democrats, their hypocrisy just like Grace to Will (Will & Grace) in the original series, when they were in an election for owners. As example: Many years ago, 3d printers were going to be used to print organs and help the chronically ill or diabetics. Until today that is not a possibility. Almost a short time ago cures for HIV were shown, however to this day the failure of the Bidenwin Twitter account does not reflect any of that. And finally, the medicines with high prices that the Democratic administration stipulates to lower, is a confusion of terms to win voters. However the Republicans are not better, they are just The sale. The Republicans believe they are the defenders of their country and freedoms, however they want to repress minorities with what in a series of brainwashing (personal track) they call white fragility. Republicans admire Trump when, thanks to his sanctions, they have millions of impoverished Venezuelan migrants at their borders. They cannot pretend to impoverished countries and not want immigrants, when those are the consequences of the gringo empire and its sanctions. (Speaking of Roman empires and gringo emulation, the Romans forbade women to drink wine because it made them less decent. The republicans prohibit women with something similar with the penalty of indecency). Here it must be said that Venezuela before the sanctions was going to be one of the most important Latin American economies, thanks to Americans today being one of the poorest countries. But don’t worry, lovers of religion who protect God and his commandment break all their rules. The commandments prevent idolizing anyone other than God and the Ultra Maga who love ‘don’t kill’ with weapons genuinely disobey them. And speaking of dead things, although mourning should be respected as an act of sensitive emotions and empathy, it is not wonderful to see how death humanizes everyone. Queen Elizabeth, Gorbachev, the president of Japan, all leaders today have no power at all. And how the press lied when it listed covid as a dangerous deadly disease, when none of these elderly people died from that disease. And the press has never made any amends to today’s society. Even the WHO with all its course has stipulated that the lack of work or excessive work can cause mental problems. At some time the WHO has denounced the lack of work of corrupt right-wing leaders in Latin America who make the population migrate to the USA, at some time the WHO has marched with the workers or told the press to raise wages in proportion to inflation? The answer is simple: they have never done or said. And speaking of hypocrisy, talking about the monster of England and the Republicans is very funny. A month ago Prince Charles received millions of dollars from the bin Laden family. Family that Republicans associate with terrorism. However, it is idyllic to see how the republicans who are supposed to protect the country are the ones who like the British empire and its connections with the terrorists they fight. Writing more things about Europe is nonsense because they repeat their history. They talk about the Russians, just as they used to talk about the Jews. They claim to protect climate change but dirty Africa and Latin America with their companies. They hate African migration but love Algerian gas. So Europe shows that they are a big thick shit. And finally, how the international press made fun of North Korea president’s illness but now they cry because the British dictator died. And why does the United States not fight the British dictatorship? Presidents and kings were never elected democratically in Uk. If they really cared about Ukraine, they should have made Zelenska queen, so Uk(raine) belonged in so facto to the UK (United Kingdom) and entered the European Union as gibraltar (the pain of the Spanish) but since the war is a false one to isolate the Russian Jews (Russians who victimize themselves like true Hollywood) shows that the Europeans were the ones who lodeteach the gringos to be hypocrites.
And finally things could change for the better. The brain is like a mirror and researchers are trying to adapt the scams of the gringo monopoly known as the iPhone to it if it had been Chinese, the United States will not allow its citizens to be scammed with the same phone with different names, but since it is a gringo brand, the United States allows they scam her
In addition, the LGBT community should move away from the Democratic Party. Since they confuse goodness with hypocrisy like the Republicans intelligence with evil. (Like Benito on mtv doing something very gay ‘singing’, and as he says in his AMORFODA song: “Quisiera que te sientas como me siento, quisiera ser como tu sin sentimiento” I want Americans to feel the same as Afghans or Ukrainians seeing how their children see that the war destroyed their future in life. I would like republican women to oppose evolution (as Nietzsche would say, prey to their animal instinct protecting or marking their territory, they are not in favor of abortion) to feel the same as Afghan girls who have no right to study or anything thanks to the war. I would like the democrats (who are destroying other countries) to lose the November elections, just like the corrupt president of Chile (not only did he have advertising from a corrupt gringo magazine: The Times) His population did not vote for him, because of his hypocrisy, his progressive laws were false, since by allying itself with the United States it further impoverished its Chilean citizens, that is one of the disadvantages of wiping the asses of the gringos and Europeans with the Russian soap opera.
And now speaking of the European Guadalupe of Russia and the great, great hypocrisy of it. We started with something in common with the United States and Chile. The one sent by the UN that when going to China due to American and European pressure, first gave a manifesto and then changed its position on China, the United States, which is not an empire, forced Bachelet and the people to say things in favor of the gringos. While the USA treats the LGBT, illnesses and immigrants the same as China treats the Uyghurs. A test of the gringo empire).Gay people are always those that have made changes in the evolution of societies, Alan Turin or the word Karen may have vestiges (will & grace) but the Democrats confuse them with naive ideas of fighting for crumbs (student loan) while the Democratic leaders become millionaires, shamans, and philanthropy gurus to convince their masses to live in mediocrity .
Gays can evolve into society. Transsexual people are very intelligent and progressive they can change their gender to feel better, they could help democrat and republican idiots increase their intellectual and cerebral level.
Evolution could help them start making flying cars, houses on the moon or on Mars. But now all they show is worse leaders. In that list, the first place of the worst leaders is Biden, in second place Putin and Zelensky and in third place all the European leaders. Sad but true, the best, better, great president on earth is the president of Mexico, he has tried to get along with all countries (including threats from the United States) including Russia, he has tried to increase the sources of employment and the security of his country.
Unfortunately in South America it is not the same, Guillermo Lasso from Ecuador Is a corrupt right Wing or Gabriel Boric from Chile, Alberto Fernández from Argentina, all corrupt and impoverishing their country by increasing migration to the United States.
Thanks and bye bye Blackbird, Queen of soul, Aretha franklin