“Third Person Cleared of HIV with Stem Cell Transplant: A Ray of Hope”

RAY OF HOPE – Researchers report the third case of a person who was ‘cleared’ of HIV after undergoing a stem cell transplant aimed at curing leukemia.

The study, published in the scientific journal Nature, describes the case of a 53-year-old male patient who underwent a bone marrow (stem cell) transplant to treat his leukemia.

Like the “London” and “Berlin” patients, the donor had a rare mutation that confers resistance to certain strains of HIV, such as HIV-1.

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“This underscores that this approach is promising and also reproducible, because this is not an isolated case,” said Jürgen Rockstroh, professor and head of infectiology at the German University Hospital Bonn.

For the record, the German University Hospital Bonn was not involved in the study.

However, the researchers point out, the treatment hasn’t worked for some of the other patients who have received it.

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Although there is still debate about the definition of “cured of HIV”, this new case complements the two previous cases of cured HIV.

Both cases used the same type of stem cell transplant as the Berlin patient and the London patient.

It is difficult to prove that a person is cured of HIV because the virus can remain hidden in very long-lived immune cells.

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Also, the methods available for detecting it are limited, wrote HIV expert Sharon Lewin and colleagues Jennifer Zerbato in The Lancet in 2020.

There is a receptor on the target cells of the HIV virus called CCR5. All three cases of HIV-1 positive patients undergoing stem cell transplantation from donors with both copies of the CCR5 mutation, this rare but naturally occurring.

Individuals with this mutation have reduced or no expression of the CCR5 receptor in their cells.