Four years ago, two different research teams have highlighted the possibility that the composition of the gut microbiota could modulate the efficacy of the cancer immunotherapy based on immune checkpoint inhibitors PD-L1 (1) and CTLA-4 (2).
Prostate cancer is the 3rd lethal type of cancer in the United States. Its diagnostic and stage assessment is done by histological analysis of microbiopsy, imagery, and serum marker evaluation. (1)
A team led by Dr. Chomont, had recently published an article in PLOS pathogens (Pardons, M et al 2019) where they have developed a flow cytometry approach, named HIV-flow, in order to evaluate the diversity in the phenotypes of HIV-infected cells. They have based their approach on detecting p24 positive cells.
A recent publication shows that for a second time a patient was “cured” by a bone-marrow transplant. The donor had two copies of a mutation in the CCR5 gene (CD195 or C-C chemokine receptor type 5), which gives people resistance to HIV infection. For 18 month now, the patient was able to stop taking antiretroviral drugs with no detectable viral loads. This is incredibly good news however this kind of treatment wouldn’t be suitable for most people with HIV.
