Seventh person with HIV is CURED after stem cell transplant for leukemia, scientists claim

A 60-year-old German man has likely been “cured” of HIV, a medical milestone that only six other people have achieved, doctors say.

The man was being treated for acute myeloid leukemia, a form of blood cancer that begins in young white blood cells in the bone marrow, with a stem cell transplant.

The painful and risky procedure is intended for people who have both HIV and aggressive leukemia, so it’s not an option for most of the nearly 40 million people worldwide living with the deadly virus.

According to doctors, he now appears to be cancer and HIV free.

The German, who wishes to remain anonymous, was dubbed the “next Berlin patient”.

Timothy Ray Brown with his dog Jack on Treasure Island in San Francisco in 2011. Brown, known for years as the Berlin Patient, received a transplant in Germany from a donor with natural resistance to the AIDS virus. It was thought to have cured Brown’s leukemia and HIV

The latest UKHSA data shows the number of HIV diagnoses has increased by 22 per cent, from 3,118 in 2021 to 3,805 in 2022.

The latest UKHSA data shows the number of HIV diagnoses has increased by 22 per cent – ​​from 3,118 in 2021 to 3,805 in 2022.

The original Berlin patient, Timothy Ray Brown, was the first person to be declared cured of HIV in 2008. Brown died of cancer in 2020.

The second man from Berlin to achieve long-term HIV remission was announced ahead of the 25th International AIDS Conference to be held next week in the German city of Munich.

He was first diagnosed with HIV in 2009, according to the research abstract presented at the conference.

What is HIV?

HIV damages the cells of the immune system, weakening the body’s ability to fight common infections and diseases.

The virus spreads through the bodily fluids — such as semen, vaginal and anal fluids, blood, and breast milk — of an infected person. However, it cannot be spread through sweat, saliva, or urine.

The disease is usually transmitted through anal or vaginal sex without a condom.

Tests are the only way to detect HIV. They are available from GPs, sexual health clinics, some charities and online and involve taking a saliva or blood sample.

A preventive HIV drug, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), can also be prescribed to people over 16. It reduces the risk of HIV, if taken correctly.

People who take post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), an HIV drug, within 72 hours of exposure may not develop the infection at all.

There is no cure for HIV for people who are infected.

But antiretroviral therapy (ART) – which prevents the virus from multiplying in the body so the immune system can repair itself – allows most people to live healthy lives.

The man received a bone marrow transplant for his leukemia in 2015. The procedure, which has a 10 percent chance of death, essentially replaces a person’s immune system.

In late 2018, he stopped taking antiretroviral drugs, which reduce the amount of HIV in the blood.

Nearly six years later, he appears to be free of both HIV and cancer, medical researchers said.

Christian Gaebler, a physician-researcher at Berlin’s Charite University Hospital who is treating the patient, said the team cannot be “absolutely certain” that every trace of HIV has been eradicated.

But “the patient’s case strongly suggests a cure for HIV,” Gaebler added.

“He is feeling good and is enthusiastic about contributing to our research.”

According to the National AIDS Trust, an estimated 105,200 people are living with HIV in the UK.

But only 94 percent of these people are diagnosed.

This means that around 1 in 16 people with HIV in the UK do not know they have the virus.

Sharon Lewin, president of the International AIDS Society, said researchers are hesitant to use the word “cure” because it’s not clear how long they would need to follow such cases.

But more than five years in remission means the man could be “close” to recovery, she told a news conference.

There is an important difference between the man’s case and other HIV patients who have achieved long-term remission, she said.

All but one of the patients received stem cells from donors with a rare mutation missing part of the CCR5 gene, which prevented HIV from entering their body cells.

These donors had inherited two copies of the mutated CCR5 gene, one from each parent, making them “essentially immune” to HIV, Lewin said.

But the new patient from Berlin is the first to receive stem cells from a donor who inherited only one copy of the mutated gene.

About 15 percent of people of European descent have one mutated copy, compared to one percent for both.

According to the National AIDS Trust (NIT), there are an estimated 105,200 people living with HIV in the UK.

According to the National AIDS Trust (NIT), there are an estimated 105,200 people living with HIV in the UK.

Timothy Ray Brown poses for a photo, Monday, March 4, 2019, in Seattle. Brown, also known as the

Timothy Ray Brown poses for a photo, Monday, March 4, 2019, in Seattle. Brown, also known as the “Berlin Patient,” was the first person to be cured of HIV infection

Researchers hope this latest success means there will be a much larger potential pool of donors in the future.

The new case also holds “great promise” for the broader search for an HIV drug that works for all patients, Lewin said.

“This is because it suggests that it is not necessary to remove every bit of CCR5 for gene therapy to work,” she added.

The Geneva patient, whose case was announced at last year’s AIDS conference, is the other outlier among the seven. He received a transplant from a donor without CCR5 mutations — and still achieved long-term remission.

This showed that the effectiveness of the procedure did not depend solely on the CCR5 gene, Lewin said.

1721325153 672 Seventh person with HIV is CURED after stem cell transplant

Mr. Brown, the first patient to be “cured,” was diagnosed with HIV in 1995 while studying in Berlin.

Ten years later, he was diagnosed with leukemia, a form of cancer that affects the blood and bone marrow.

Acute myeloid leukemia is the most common form in adults, with about 3,000 Britons and 20,000 Americans diagnosed each year.

It is also the deadliest disease, killing 2,700 people each year in the UK and 11,000 in the US.

To treat his leukemia, his doctor at the Free University of Berlin used a stem cell transplant from a donor who had a rare genetic mutation that gave him natural resistance to HIV. He hoped this would eradicate both diseases.

It took two painful and dangerous procedures, but it was a success: in 2008, Brown was declared free of the two conditions and was initially referred to at a medical conference as “the Berlin patient” to preserve his anonymity.

Two years later, he decided to break his silence and became a public figure, giving speeches and interviews and setting up his own foundation.

“I am living proof that there is a cure for AIDS,” he told AFP in 2012. “It is truly wonderful to be cured of HIV.”

Although he remained cured of HIV, his cancer returned.

Ten years after Brown was cured, a second HIV patient, nicknamed “the London patient,” went into remission 19 months after a similar procedure.

The patient, Adam Castillejo, is currently HIV-free.

Other patients include a patient from Düsseldorf in 2023, a patient from New York in 2022, the patient from Esperanza in 2021 and Loreen Willenberg in 2020.

Unlike the other patients, the Esperanza patient and Mrs. Willenberg’s immune systems naturally clear the virus from their bodies.

HOW A STEM CELL TRANSPLANT CURED THE BERLIN PATIENT AND THE LONDON PATIENT

The vast majority of people carry the CCR5 gene.

It’s utterly useless in many ways.

Recent research shows that it affects our chances of survival and recovery after a stroke.

And it is the main entry point for HIV to infect our immune system.

However, some people carry a mutation that prevents CCR5 from being expressed, effectively blocking or turning off the gene.

Those few people in the world are called “elite controllers” by HIV experts. They are naturally resistant to HIV.

If the virus ever entered their bodies, they would naturally keep the virus “under control,” as if they were taking the antiviral drugs that HIV patients need.

Both the Berlin patient and the London patient received stem cells from people with that crucial mutation.

WHY HAS IT NEVER WORKED?

“There are many reasons why this hasn’t worked,” Dr. Janet Siliciano, a leading HIV researcher at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told DailyMail.com.

1. FINDING DONORS

“It’s incredibly difficult to find bone marrow that matches the HLA gene (meaning someone has the same proteins in their blood as you do),” Dr. Siliciano said.

“It is even more difficult to find the CCR5 mutation.”

2. INEFFECTIVE TRANSPLANTATION LEADS TO CANCER RELAPSE

Secondly, there is always a risk that the bone marrow will not ‘take hold’.

“Sometimes you don’t become fully ‘chimeric,’ meaning you still have a lot of your own cells.”

That’s one of the two most common reasons why previous attempts fail: the immune system isn’t fully replaced, the cancer comes back, and the patient doesn’t survive.

3. GRAVE VERSUS HOST DISEASE: THE OLD IMMUNE SYSTEM ATTACKS THE NEW

The other most common reason this approach fails is graft-versus-host disease.

This is when the patient’s immune system tries to attack the incoming, replacement immune system, causing a fatal reaction in most patients.

4. UNKNOWN QUANTITIES

Interestingly, both the Berlin and London patients experienced complications that would be fatal in most other cases.

And experts believe that these complications assisted their affairs.

Timothy Ray Brown, the patient from Berlin, had both: his cancer returned and he developed graft-versus-host disease, which left him in a coma and requiring a second bone marrow transplant.

The London patient had one: he suffered from graft-versus-host disease.

Against all odds, they both survived, HIV-free.

Some believe that, ironically, graft-versus-host disease helped them both further eradicate their HIV.

But there is no way to verify or reproduce that in a safe way.