HIV cured in second patient ever!
An international team of scientists reported the "functional cure" of an HIV patient for the second time in history. The man received a transplant of bone marrow stem cells from a donor with a resistance to the virus. This patient has now been in remission for 18 months with no sign of the HIV-1 virus in his blood.
The research was conducted by scientists at the University of Melbourn, the Westmead Institute for Medical Research, and the University of Cambridge. The patient was diagnosed in 2003 with HIV and then advanced Hodgkin's Lymphoma in 2012. To treat the cancer he received bone marrow stem cells from a donor who had two copies of a particular mutation to the gene CCR5. Antiretroviral therapy is typically used to manage HIV but 16 months after the transplant the patient was able to stop treatment. While the patient seems to have been effectively cured the team is still reluctant to jump to that conclusion.
The first patient to be cured occurred in 2007 underwent a similar but more aggressive treatment. He received bone marrow stem cells to help treat leukemia but was also treated with total body irradiation. A procedure that could help the marrow transplant hold. This new study confirms that the original case was not just a fluke and that the same result can be obtained less aggressively.
"One of the complications that both the Berlin and London patients experienced might play a key role in the treatment. Both men went through graft-versus-host disease, which is basically the reverse of rejection – instead of the patient's immune system attacking the transplant, cells in the transplant attack the host's body. It's believed that the transplanted stem cells might help to eliminate host cells that are still infected with HIV, preventing the virus from returning." (Irving, 2019)
While it is promising to have confirmation that a cure is in fact possible it may be too risky for regular use. However having shown that blocking the CCR5 gene works to fight HIV, the researchers suggest that gene therapy could be less invasive treatment in the future.
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