Stories like this are the reason why I have internalized Pasteurs quote: "Chance favors the prepared mind."
This story has been bouncing around the internets for a day or so, and to me, as an immunology-oriented biochemist who is well acquainted with the the science, this is by far the best hope yet for an actual "cure" for AIDS. As so often happens in scientific research, a serendipitous discovery will probably provide the paradigm shift to change the direction of the entire field and rapidly progress to a cure.
I won't summarize the science since the WSJ article does an excellent job of that already, but I will make one quick point:
Many great breakthroughs in drug discovery and the development of new therapies come from unexpected experimental outcomes completely un-related to the intent of the research. Take for example the discovery of Penicillin by Alexander Fleming. Money quote:
"When I woke up just after dawn on September 28, 1928, I certainly didn't plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world's first antibiotic, or bacteria killer," Fleming would later say, "But I guess that was exactly what I did."
Another, even more unlikely example of unexpected drug discovery derives from work at Michigan State in the late 60's that led to the identification of Cisplatin as an anti-tumor agent by Barnett Rosenberg.
The botteom line: vaccine development has been a multi-decade, multi-billion dollar boondoggle, and in fact the largest program project grant in NIH history is still dedicated to the development of an AIDS vaccine. I think it's time to shift some of those funds over to engineered bone marrow approaches. And let's return the growth of the NIH budget to what it was in the Clinton administration. TheMadScientist is getting an ulcer worrying about his next R01 getting funded.
Update: Thanks everyone for your comments. This was my first diary, and I appreciate your criticisms.