For the first time ever, it appears scientists have cured a woman of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
In a clinical trial, scientists used a new stem cell transplant method that left the woman, who has not been publicly identified, without the virus in her system. She is the third person to achieve HIV remission and was treated with cord blood stem cells, which are more widely available than the adult stem cells used in the other two people, who were both men.
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“This third case of HIV remission suggests that CCRΔ5/Δ32 cord stem cell transplantation should be considered to achieve HIV remission and cure for people living with HIV who require such a transplant for other diseases, according to the study team,” the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said in a press release.
The “New York patient” was diagnosed with HIV in 2013 and had been on antiretroviral therapy, a treatment for the disease. The NIAID said the HIV in her system was “well-controlled but detectable.” She was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in 2017 and then began the experimental treatment, which involved the cord blood stem cells supplemented with some “adult donor cells from a relative,” the NIAID said.
Scientists found no traceable sign of HIV in her system for 37 months after the transplant took place. They then took her off ART and found that she had no HIV in her system for 14 months and counting. The scientists noted that they detected “trace levels of HIV DNA” in her blood cells 14 weeks after she was taken off ART but did not detect the virus itself.
In all three cases in which HIV is believed to have been cured, the stem cell donors had a genetic mutation known as CCR5-Δ32 that prevented the HIV virus from entering cells. About 1% of humans of European descent are believed to carry the CCR5-Δ32 mutation, The Atlantic reported.
The transplant therapies involved procedures that essentially destroy the patient’s original immune system, NBC News reported. As a result, experts told the outlet that they believe it is unethical to try those transplant procedures on patients that do not have cancer or conditions that make them a “candidate for such risky treatment.”
The NIAID said the New York patient was of mixed-race ancestry. The success of the cord blood stem cell transplant used on her could lead to the treatment being used on patients of diverse racial backgrounds, according to the New York Times. The cord blood stem cells do not need to match the recipient as closely as the bone marrow transplants that cured the previous two patients, the outlet reported. Most donors in the national bone marrow registry are white, according to the MayoClinic.
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The research on the New York patient was conducted by International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trial Network P1107, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health, according to the NIAID. The study was led by Dr. Yvonne Bryson from the University of California, Los Angeles and Dr. Deborah Persaud from Johns Hopkins University.
The two men who had been cured of HIV were listed as the “Berlin patient” and the “London patient.” The Berlin patient, Timothy Ray Brown, also had leukemia and received a bone marrow transplant that scientists believed cured his HIV for 12 years until his death in 2020 from leukemia, according to the NIAID. In 2019, scientists announced that the London patient, Adam Castillejo, who had Hodgkin’s lymphoma, received a bone marrow transplant that cured his HIV.
