 Thursday. Also attending that conference is Matt Sharp, a longtime San Francisco HIV/AIDS activist who is HIV-positive and was one of the 12 patients in the gene therapy trial.
Sharp was not one of the six patients who went off antiretroviral therapy, so he doesn't know whether the treatment improved his ability to control the virus, but he said his CD4-cell count doubled, which was a pleasant surprise.
"That was significant for me because I was getting concerned," Sharp said. "It was a pretty shocking result from just one infusion of a gene therapy product."
Sharp said he doesn't expect anyone to develop a cure for HIV anytime soon, but he's feeling positive about some new therapies in development.
"I know that I probably won't live to see a cure, based on what we're seeing so far," he said. "But I may see the day where I can stop my antiretrovirals at least, and be in what's called remission. I really believe that we'll see that day in the not-too-distant future."