Third person ‘cured’ of HIV after receiving stem cell cancer treatment

Men without signs of active HIV infection after receiving stem cells from virus-resistant donors

To Michael Le Paige

A 53-year-old man from Düsseldorf, Germany, has been declared HIV-free by doctors after undergoing a hematopoietic stem cell transplant to treat leukemia. It’s his third case of this kind.

The man has been off antiretrovirals for four years and has no signs of active infection. Björn Jensen of Düsseldorf University Hospital said, “I don’t think there is a working virus.

A “patient from Düsseldorf” tested positive for HIV in 2008. In 2011 he developed leukemia, underwent chemotherapy, but relapsed the following year. So, in 2013, blood stem cells in a man’s bone marrow that generate immune cells, including cancer cells, were killed by chemotherapy and then replaced by donor blood stem cells.

Importantly, doctors found a donor with a mutation that disabled the CCR5 receptor, which HIV uses to infect immune cells. rice field.

In 2017, the team was able to discontinue immunosuppressive drugs to prevent rejection of the donor cells, and antiretroviral therapy was discontinued in November 2018.

Two other people who were treated for cancer were previously reported to be cured of HIV in the same way. However, bone marrow transplantation is not used to treat HIV alone because it is risky and drugs can suppress the virus.

One alternative approach being explored is using gene editing to mutate the CCR5 gene in the immune system of HIV-positive people.

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