VANGUARD
Doctors in Germany have announced a potential breakthrough in the fight against HIV. A 60-year-old man has shown signs of being cured of both HIV and leukemia after undergoing a stem cell transplant.
This is the seventh documented case of such a remission, a medical milestone achieved by only a handful of people worldwide.
According to research presented at the upcoming International AIDS Conference, he was diagnosed with HIV in 2009. The man received the stem cell transplant as treatment for acute myeloid leukemia, a type of blood cancer. This complex and risky procedure is not a viable option for most people living with HIV due to the aggressive nature of the leukemia it targets.
However, in this specific case, the patient appears to be free of both cancer and HIV, according to his doctors. He has been anonymously dubbed the “next Berlin patient,” following Timothy Ray Brown, the first person functionally cured of HIV in 2008. Sadly, Brown passed away from cancer in 2020.
This news comes ahead of the 25th International AIDS Conference in Munich, Germany, offering a glimmer of hope in the fight against the virus. While this specific treatment option has limitations, it adds to the growing body of research on HIV remission strategies.
In 2015, he underwent a high-risk bone marrow transplant (10 percent mortality risk) to treat his leukemia. This procedure essentially replaces a patient’s entire immune system with that of a healthy donor.
Following the transplant, the patient stopped taking antiretroviral drugs – medication that suppresses HIV but doesn’t cure it – in late 2018.
Nearly six years later, with no signs of HIV or leukemia relapse, doctors believe he may be functionally cured. However, Dr. Christian Gaebler, who is treating the patient at Berlin’s Charite university hospital, emphasizes caution.
“We cannot be absolutely certain every last trace of HIV has been eradicated,” Dr. Gaebler explains. “But the patient’s case is highly suggestive of an HIV cure.”
The patient, who remains anonymous, is reportedly doing well and is eager to contribute to ongoing research efforts. This case offers a valuable addition to the limited number of similar remissions and fuels hope for a future HIV cure, although the specific treatment option has significant limitations.
While researchers hesitate to use the definitive term “cure” due to the need for longer follow-up data, the case of the “next Berlin patient” offers significant promise in the fight against HIV. Dr. Sharon Lewin, President of the International AIDS Society, explained that with over five years in remission, the patient is “close” to being considered cured.
However, there’s a key difference from previous remission cases.
Previously, patients received stem cells with a rare CCR5 gene mutation that essentially made them immune to HIV. This mutation, present in both copies inherited from each parent, blocked the virus from entering cells.
The new Berlin patient, however, received stem cells from a donor with only one copy of the mutated gene, a condition seen in roughly 15 percent of people of European descent compared to just 1 percent with the full mutation in both copies. This successful use of a single-copy mutation offers hope for a much larger potential donor pool in the future for similar stem cell therapies.
Lewin further emphasizes the broader promise this case holds: “It suggests that you don’t actually have to get rid of every single piece of CCR5 for gene therapy to work.” This opens new avenues for research into an HIV cure applicable to a wider range of patients. The Geneva patient, whose case was announced at last year’s AIDS conference, is the other exception among the seven. He received a transplant from a donor without any CCR5 mutations — yet still achieved long-term remission.
This showed that the effectiveness of the procedure was not just down to the CCR5 gene, Lewin said. Brown, the first patient to be ‘cured’, was diagnosed with HIV while was studying in Berlin in 1995. A decade later, he was diagnosed with leukaemia, a cancer that affects the blood and bone marrow. Acute myeloid leukaemia is the most common type among adults, with around 3,000 Brits and 20,000 Americans diagnosed each year.