Stem cell research has often promised exciting news because of the cells` potential to regenerate and repair. The research put in practice has often been successful in curing multiple diseases, on two cases being HIV infection. Up to now, two people are HIV-free for the first time ever in history and hope remains for millions infected.
More than a decade ago, Timothy Brown, the so-called Berlin patient who later went public, made history as the first person to be “cured” of HIV. Like the London patient, he had a bone marrow stem cell transplant to treat cancer.
This year, A London patient with HIV has become the second person ever to be free of the virus after a bone marrow transplant, raising hopes of a cure for HIV. While he wishes that his identity remain anonymous, his cure made worldwide news and sparked hope among HIV patients.
Both patients received stem cells from a donor with a rare genetic mutation of the CCR5 gene, making them HIV-resistant. Brown came off the antiretroviral drugs that suppress HIV and has been virus-free ever since. Scientists now consider him cured. The London patient stopped taking the medication 18 months ago and there is no sign of a return of HIV.
Credits: Manuel Valdes / AP
The case is a proof of the concept that scientists will one day be able to end AIDS, the doctors said, but does not mean a cure for HIV has been found.
Prof Ravindra Gupta from University College London and lead author of the paper on the successful treatment of the London patient, published in the journal Nature, said the way forward could be editing of the CCR5 gene, which allows HIV to enter cells.
Gupta described his patient as “functionally cured” and “in remission”, but cautioned: “It’s too early to say he’s cured.”
The man is being called “the London patient”, in part because his case is similar to the first known case of a functional cure of HIV – in an American man, Timothy Brown, who became known as the Berlin patient when he underwent similar treatment in Germany in 2007 which also cleared his HIV.
Brown, who had been living in Berlin, has since moved to the United States and, according to HIV experts, is still HIV-free.
Some 37 million people worldwide are currently infected with HIV and the AIDS pandemic has killed around 35 million people worldwide since it began in the 1980s. Scientific research into the complex virus has in recent years led to the development of drug combinations that can keep it at bay in most patients.
Sources: Telegraph, The Guardian, NBC News
