The Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) is widely recognized as the leading research conference for HIV Disease. The conference features the most cutting-edge clinical research as well as laboratory-based research and epidemiology. The research accepted for presentation must meet the highest standard for quality of the work and it’s relevance to the field. This year, the 26th CROI was held from March 4-7th in Seattle, Washington.
The next three articles in the series will bring you some updates on what we have learned from the conference. With over 1000 presentations, what I present will barely be the tip of the iceberg, but hopefully, you will find the reports interesting and some may even be helpful.
One of the most anticipated research reports to emerge from the Conference is the case of an HIV patient that is potentially “cured” of AIDS, known as the “London patient”. The presenter of this case was Dr. Ravindra Gupta based at University College London in the UK.
This case is also very similar in many ways to the other famous cure case, the Berlin Patient. The case is a complicated one and there are many variables that could be related to the outcome. We also must use the word “cure” very cautiously because that has not been established yet, and furthermore, the scientific community has not clearly established what constitutes a cure. So let’s try to get through this.
The patient was diagnosed with HIV in 2003 and