This Man Was Cured of HIV

German researchers have confirmed that an American man living in Berlin, Germany is the first -- and only person -- to be successfully cured of his HIV infection after he received a blood stem cell transplant in 2007.

Three years ago, Timothy Ray Brown (pictured) had been an HIV-positive leukemia patient. Prior to receiving the stem cell transplant, he underwent intense chemotherapy to completely replace his immune system. However, the new stem cells that he received had a rare genetic mutation - found naturally in just one percent of Caucasians in northern and western Europe - that causes certain cells to lack a particular receptor, known as the CCR5 receptor, which HIV binds to. At the time Huetter specifically was looking for bone marrow stem cell donors that contained the rare CCR5 deletion. Since his treatment, the so-called "Berlin patient" has been effectively cured of AIDS and its disease-causing virus, HIV, but also leukemia. This likely makes him the first, and so far, only person ever to have been cured of HIV, out of more than 30 million currently infected people worldwide. Scientists have previously seen a very small number of cases where the virus does not replicate inside the host and therefore does not cause AIDS. However, these so-called "non-progressives," represent an extremely small percentage of known HIV patients around the world.

Scientists have cautioned that this may not work for everyone. Transplants of bone marrow — or, more commonly these days, of blood stem cells — are done to treat cancer, and their risks in healthy people is unknown. It involves destroying the person's native immune system with powerful drugs and radiation, then replacing it with donor cells to grow a new immune system. Mortality from the procedure or its complications can be 5 percent or more. So, unless someone with HIV also had cancer, a transplant would not likely be considered. Plus, the procedure is costly.


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