Sam Amico
A fairly risky stem cell transplant from a decade ago seems to have cured a German man who once tested positive for HIV.
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The breakthrough case was initially announced back in 2019, but it wasn’t confirmed until nearly four years later. He is believed to be the third person cured via the transplant, and fifth cured ever overall.
“We don’t think there’s a functional virus present,” Dr. Björn Jensen, the study author and division head of infectious diseases at Düsseldorf University Hospital in Germany, told New Scientist.
The man’s name has not been revealed publicly, though the report stated he’s 53-years-old.
He underwent a stem cell transplant in 2013 for leukemia, showing traces of HIV. The leukemia made him ineligible for HIV vaccines.
Third Person ‘Cured’ of HIV
“I am all the more proud of my worldwide team of doctors who succeeded in curing me of HIV — and at the same time, of course, leukemia,” he said, via the New York Post.
The German man joins American Timothy Ray Brown and British-Venezuelan man Adam Castillejo as those who have been cured of HIV via cancer-related stem cell transplants. Brown underwent the transplant in 2009, with Castillejo doing the same a decade later.
“I think we can get a lot of insights from this patient and from these similar cases of HIV cure,” Jense said. “We can now confirm that it is fundamentally possible to prevent the replication of HIV on a sustainable basis by combining two key methods.
“… On the one hand, we have the extensive depletion of the virus reservoir in long-lived immune cells, and on the other hand, the transfer of HIV resistance from the donor immune system to the recipient, ensuring that the virus has no chance to spread again.”
More than 38 million people have been diagnosed with HIV worldwide. Jensen added that more research is needed to “replicate the cure outside the specific circumstances outlined in the aforementioned cases,” the Post relayed.
