by John S. James
Why It Matters
Here is an HIV-eradication research direction ignored by the AIDS research mainstream, though many peer-reviewed papers have been published -- one claiming HIV eradication in patients in clinical trials in Japan. Not only Drs. N. Yamamoto and others, whose work will be presented today at the International AIDS Conference, but also other research teams have worked with this substance (usually in cancer not HIV); there is agreement that it does have anti-cancer activities at least in mice, and should be a basis for drug development (for example, to find a small molecule that mimics its effects).
GcMAF also got into the cancer-treatment underground, which may be why few scientists have paid attention to it.
At today's poster, the presenting author is listed as Dr. Marco Ruggiero, a molecular biologist who has not published on GcMAF before. We do not know if Dr. Yamamoto (who is the senior author of the poster) will be there.
If GcMAF eradicates HIV in patients as Dr. Yamamoto describes, this poster could be the most important presentation at the Vienna conference.
Do we think it's a cure? No, because most treatments fail. But it could possibly be a major advance, so it should get attention. Today is the best time for scientists around the world to get a look.
A recent press report quoted Dr. Dieffenbacher, director of the AIDS Division at US NIAID, as saying "there is really a dearth of new approaches" for HIV eradication. Could this be a garden-variety case of group dynamics, where insiders talk to each other and keep narrowing their focus, not seeing anything of interest outside the narrow spotlight beam, and becoming increasingly irrelevant? Big advances often come from outside.
Background Info
Today's (Thursday's) poster is # THPE0051, titled "Gc protein-derived macrophage activating factor (GcMAF) stimulates activation and proliferation of human circulating monocytes," by M. Ruggiero, S. Pacini, and N. Yamamoto. It is in the poster exhibition. The presenter is usually there from 12:30-14:30.
Dr. Yamamoto's most recent paper, which reports HIV eradication in people, is Immunotherapy of HIV-Infected Patients With Gc Protein-Derived Macrophage Activating Factor (GcMAF) (Journal of Medical Virology, January 2009).
Also search PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/) for GcMAF. The substance has different names, so also try DPB-MAF. Or search for "vitamin D binding protein" -- which is a precursor of GcMAF.
And for any of those searches you can look at Related Citations -- e.g. the 132 citations related to the search result for GcMAF.
Disclosure
AIDS Treatment News and this writer have no conflict of interest, no relationship with anyone involved with GcMAF.
10 comments:
Big advances often come from outside.
You are right 100% 2 years ago only few noted the abstract of doc. Hutter ( None among them were scientist ...... grrrrrrr )
I think that GcMAF and Nagalase are most interesting but I also found" from Protein Science
Volume 18 Issue 10, Pages 2036 - 2042
Published Online: 29 Jul 2009
which seems to dispute that. I wish I could find the Hutter abstract to further my education.
The article from "Protein Science" does not question the efficacy of GcMaf, but rather why cancer patients can't seem to mount a reasonable macrophage stimulation (according to Yamamoto it is caused by the DBP trisaccharide glycosylation, which is the hypothesis challenged by the paper).
No, you mean DEglycosylation I think.
And YES, that it quite a mystery. Nagalase is produced in pregnancy but how it achieves the prevention of creation of GcMAF is quite unclear. Given that in vitro created GcMAF still activates those macrophages, it seems that the Nagalase must interfere with the lesser deglycosylations by the enzymes on the B and T cells,
Are there yet any simulations that can find potential connections between a given enzyme in situ in a cell membrane and a free floating Nagalase enzyme molecule?
What do you think of Nagalase and Gc-maf ? Is it worth to follow Nobuto Yamamoto's work regard cancer and hiv infection ? At Vienna AIDS meeting 2010 they have presented a further research about Gc-MAF and hiv infection. Please read PLOSONE and The Journal of surgical research, they have recently pubblished something very interesting about Gc-maf.
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http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0013428
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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20855083
I saw the PLoSone paper and wrote Fannon. He's never had so much email, but he is unconvinced about HIV. I understand, but the Nagalase activity of gp120 is very interesting since it directly inhibits production of GcMAF.
GcMAF.eu suggests that some of Yamamoto's complete success is due to the tight constraints on his cohorts. Different racial backgrounds seem to matter, they say, as well as the ability to take vigorous walks. Now I wonder about apheresis using stimulated macrophages from a good responder to MAF and infusing them into a cancer patient already bed-ridden.
Zheng Cui's LIFT (Leukocyte InFusion Therapy) is in clinical trial at the South Florida Bone Marrow/Stem Cell Transplant Institute supported by $800k from LEF.org with results expected in 2012. This uses white blood cells from a donor who proves to have cancer resistant neutrophils and macrophages. This seems to happen only in the summer. Who will look to see what metabolic differences exist in those white blood cells to cause the cancer resistance?
The second reference looks like further support for starting clinical trials for both direct activation of any cancer patient's macrophages as well as for activating a responsive donor's macrophages and using them for infusion into the patient.
There's a lab producing Gc-MAF in The Netherlands. We've had a positive experience with this product regarding colon cancer and spoke with doctors who use it on other patients. We have not heard a bad word yet. I hate to advertise anything but hate to see people die too, so contact them if you want to find out procedures: www.bgli.nl
Fred
http://www.gcmaf.eu/info/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=114&Itemid=53
Gc-maf works... please take a look at ICAR 2011 in Florence (Italian annual AIDS meeting ).
One patient, 44 years old, has been diagnoseg hiv+ since 1984, and full blown aids in 2001. In 2009 this patient developed resistance to conventional antiretroviral ARV and observed a decline of cd4 to 40 cells/ml and general health, and viremia arise up to 160.000 copies/ml
After 10 injections of Gc-maf viremia decreased to 2343 copies/ml and cd4 increased up to 298 copies/ml.
Other patients are testing as volunteer GC-MAF.
Some of them, after few injections of Gc-maf, are claiming they are undectable without taking standard haart.
ICAR 2001 ITALY FLORENCE HIV MEETING
Gc-maf
Gc-maf works... please take a look at ICAR 2011 in Florence Italian annual AIDS meeting . One patient, 44 years old, has been diagnoseg hiv+ since 1984, and full blown aids in 2001. In 2009 this patient developed resistance to conventional antiretroviral ARV and observed a decline of cd4 to 40 cells/ml and general health, and viremia arise up to 160.000 copies/ml After only 10 injections of Gc-maf, at the end of 2010, viremia decreased to 2343 copies/ml and cd4 increased up to 298 copies/ml. No available haart can decrease viremia in a way as GC-MAF does ( macrophages kill hiv integrated cells )
IT'S TIME TO TAKE GC-MAF SERIOUSLY
http://www.gcmaf.eu/info/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=114&Itemid=53
Is very important tell HIV+ people do research about GcMAF and take this research seriously.
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