Subject: Fight Against AIDS May Be Helped By Some Blood Cells
Date: Published: 12/12/86 82 lines
Source:  Wall Street Journal.  Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

   Fight Against AIDS May Be Helped
   By Some Blood Cells, Researchers Say
    ---
   By Marilyn Chase
   Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

   SAN FRANCISCO -- A research team at the University of
California at San Francisco said some people infected with
the AIDS virus don't develop AIDS because they are protected
by a natural immunity that doctors some day may be able to
exploit as a possible therapy.
   The team, led by Jay A. Levy, said some infected
homosexual men who didn't go on to develop the lethal
acquired immune deficiency syndrome disease were found to
have high levels of certain white blood cells called
T-suppressor cells, which may help block viral reproduction
and thus delay or arrest the progression to active disease.
   Dr. Levy and co-workers Christopher Walker, Dewey Moody,
and Daniel Stites reported their findings in this week's
edition of the journal Science.
   The Levy team said it drew blood from seven patients and
then removed the T-suppressor cells, leaving behind the
T-helper cells that are principal targets of the AIDS virus.
The virus then grew in the test tube.
   When the T-suppressor cells were put back into the test
tube, viral reproduction stopped.  Dr. Levy said he believes
the T-suppressor cells work by producing lymphokines,
substances such as interferon or tumor necrosis factor, which
assist the body's immune defenses.
   "We weren't killing the virus, but suppressing its ability
to replicate," Dr. Levy said.  "Most people agree that if you
can stop the spread of virus, you'll stop progression of the
disease."  But, he added, a long-term study is needed.  "We
describe this as a first step, but we think it's a dramatic
one," he said.  "It's an extension of saying that your body
has a way of fighting off the virus."
   Theoretically, Dr. Levy said, doctors might culture large
volumes of T-suppressor cells outside the body and inject
them into patients.  However, he acknowledged that it's
unknown whether the suppressor cells will work as well in the
body as in the test tube, or "whether you can give sufficient
numbers of cells" to boost immunity.
   He said the next steps will be to identify which
lymphokine the T-suppressor cells are producing and to select
potential human test subjects, mainly people with early
infections.
   The report, though preliminary, struck the government's
top immunologist as promising but in need of further
investigation.  Anthony Fauci, director of the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a unit of the
National Institutes of Health, said in a prepared statement
that the Levy team's report is "an interesting study of
potential importance in understanding the mechanisms of how
the body defends itself against replication of (the AIDS
virus)."  However, Dr. Fauci said he would like to see further
studies to confirm the report, and to outline exactly how the
T-suppressor cells work.
   Separately, another team of UCSF researchers reported that
they believe AIDS may act as a so-called auto-immune disease,
in which the patient's immune system attacks itself -- a
theory that has been promoted by French researchers at the
Pasteur Insititute in Paris.
   John Ziegler and Daniel Stites said the first phases of
AIDS feature swollen glands, high levels of antibodies -- 
some against normal tissues -- and damage to organs that
mimics certain auto-immune disorders.
   "What you see in early AIDS isn't an immune deficiency but
an immune system in overdrive," said Dr. Ziegler, noting that
in later stages of AIDS, T-helper cells drop, permitting
attack by rare infections and cancers that ultimately cause
death of patients.  His report is published in the current
issue of Clinical Immunology and Immunopathology.

(This article is made available here by Dow Jones Co. for the 
personal and non-commercial use of callers to this bbs, in the 
hope that it will be of some help to those who are suffering 
from the disease and others who are seeking to help them.)