A patient has been diagnosed as being in remission from the HIV virus, according to an article released in the Nature journal.  The patient was the second who was reported to be cured in twelve years, using the same therapies as the previous patient.

While this is a hopeful leap for the treatment and eventual cure of HIV, the approach isn’t quite ready for broad use.

The treatment plan, released by scientists at Seattle’s Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, involved bone marrow transplants.  The transplants were not initially intended to cure the HIV, they were a treatment modality for treating cancer.  The side benefits?  Placing the HIV virus into remission.

Bone marrow transplant has many side-effects and is a risky procedure, so it’s questionable if the therapy will be a widely accepted treatment plan for HIV.  More likely, physicians will stick with the medications traditionally used to fight the disease.

Modified Immune Cell Replacement

Scientists are turning their focus away from treating the disease and looking at the role of modified immune cell replacement of infected cells.  These cells will be modified to be resistant to HIV.

Dr. Annemarie Wensing, a University Medical Center virologist at Utrecht, Netherlands explains that the discovery will provide hope for people; a cure is within reach.  Dr. Wensing is the co-leader of a group of European scientists that focused their studies on using stem cell transplants for the treatment of an HIV infection.

AMFAR, an American AIDS research group, has been behind the team of successful IciStem scientists, the second group of researchers to cure an HIV patient.

The first reported patient cured of HIV was revealed twelve years prior at the conference by a German physician who used bone marrow treatments as a cure for the patient’s leukemia.  The doctor was amazed to find that the patient’s HIV was cured as well.

Researchers tried to imitate the procedure, hoping for success but to no avail.  The patients either died of their cancers or after they stopped their anti-retroviral meds the virus returned.

Researchers have isolated immune cells with a mutated variety of a standard CCR5 protein.  This mutation keeps the HUV virus from infecting cells by blocking the virus from attaching to white blood cells.

This treatment was nearly fatal to the first patient who tried it, but the process has been streamlined to be safer.  The second patient fared better when he received a bone marrow transplant for his Hodgkin’s lymphoma.  The donor had the mutated CCR5 in their donated cells.

The second patient also fortified the treatment with a cycle of immunosuppressive drugs until 2017.  He then stopped taking the anti-retroviral medications and has remained free of HIV to date.

When a person loves something with all their being, they tend to show that off. This is especially true for cat lovers and they can be the worst. Cats on their clothes (no, we don’t mean the hair), cats on their jewelry, cats on their eye glasses, even on their walls!

What is great about that is it can be a form of art that will stay with you forever. Some like it painted on a canvas and framed in a delicate, ornate frame. Others like it as a mural, directly on the wall.

One such mural was painted by freelance illustrator and graphic designer Stephanie Ho. The Temasek Polytechnic graduate worked as an in-house designer with two different companies before heading out on her own path, so that she can design things like this big little project.

A cat-loving couple from Singapore commissioned a mural from Stephanie that will demonstrate just how much they love cats. Armed with Nippon Odorless All-in-One paint, Stephanie took a total of six hours to draw a meowtain of cats next to a big window in their Build-to-Order apartment.

The couple had one special requirement for the meowtain though – that it would include the Labrador from the husband’s family and the Shih Tzu that the wife used to have.

Stephanie took due diligence to record her creative process as she begins drawing the cats from the ground up. Each cat has her own personality, just like in real life! We think it’s meowvellous, and looks completely worth the S$1,000 the couple paid for it!

What if a USB cable could provide the same smooth, fast data transfer speeds as a Thunderbolt port?  If that excites you, wait until you meet the USB4, the next generation of mobile devices and PCs.

USB4 will deliver data at incredible speeds when it’s connected via USB cables on compatible devices:  up to 40 Gigabits per second.  Intel has created the Thunderbolt 3 for the USB group, and USB4 bases its technology on Intel’s advanced tech.  Thunderbolt 3 will be available to use royalty-free.

USB Implementers Forum released a press release explaining that they’re built in; this next logical step for the Universal Serial Bus tech will mean that Thunderbolt will become a more affordable tech for manufacturers to include in their devices.

5K Support

Android Central  explains that the sky is the limit; devices could include 100 watts of on-demand power, support for up to eight lanes of DisplayPort data, and 40Gbps transfer rates.   Two 4K HDR displays, at 60 HZ each, or a 5K display could be supported fully.

This will mean that two 4K HDR displays at 60 Hz or one 5K display would be fully supported.  If the tech becomes more affordable to include n devices, it will definitely bring down purchasing costs for devices supporting USB4.

As Jason Ziller, Intel’s General Manager of Client Connectivity explains, “Releasing the Thunderbolt protocol specification is a significant milestone for making today’s simplest and most versatile port available to everyone. By collaborating with the USB Promoter Group, we’re opening the doors for innovation across a wide range of devices and increasing compatibility to deliver better experiences to consumers.”

To fully benefit from the max data transfer speed, you will need to have cables that are 40Gbs-certified; these are USBC to USBC only.  The USB4 will be fully compatible to all Thunderbird 3 devices and all USB specifications.

Microsoft, HP, Intel, and Apple are among the 50 tech companies that are going to be taking part in a final review of USB4 tech. They will release the specs around mid-year. The exciting part of these companies taking part in the testing is that it is predicted that they will use these new specifications when they do become available.

The USB4 is expected to be released next year.