![]() Knowing it would be almost impossible to find the New York patient a compatible adult donor with the mutation, the team instead transplanted CCR5-delta32/32-carrying stem cells from banked umbilical cord blood to try to cure both her cancer and HIV simultaneously. This rarity limits the potential to transplant stem cells carrying the beneficial mutation into patients of color because stem cell transplants usually require a strong match between donor and recipient. Only around 1% of white people are homozygous for the CCR5-delta32 mutation and it is even rarer in other populations. ![]() The "Berlin patient" was the first person to be cured of HIV in 2009, and since then, two other men-the "London patient" and "Düsseldorf patient"-have also been rid of the virus.Īll three received stem cell transplants as part of their cancer treatments, and in all cases, the donor cells came from compatible or "matched" adults carrying two copies of the CCR5-delta32 mutation, a natural mutation that confers resistance to HIV by preventing the virus from entering and infecting cells. Nearly 38 million people around the world live with HIV, and antiviral treatments, while effective, must be taken for life. "Using cord blood cells broadens the opportunities for people of diverse ancestry who are living with HIV and require a transplant for other diseases to attain cures." "The HIV epidemic is racially diverse, and it's exceedingly rare for persons of color or diverse race to find a sufficiently matched, unrelated adult donor," says Yvonne Bryson of UCLA, who co-led the study with fellow pediatrician and infectious disease expert Deborah Persaud of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "Taken together, these three cases of a cure post stem cell transplant all help in teasing out the various components of the transplant that were absolutely key to a cure," Lewin said.The researchers share the full results March 16 in the journal Cell preliminary details on the case study were presented in February 2022 at the 29th annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections. Previously, scientists believed that a common stem cell transplant side effect called graft-versus-host disease, in which the donor immune system attacks the recipient’s immune system, played a role in a possible cure. The study suggests that an important element to the success is the transplantation of HIV-resistant cells. But the report "confirms that a cure for HIV is possible and further strengthens using gene therapy as a viable strategy for an HIV cure," she said. Lewin said bone marrow transplants are not a viable strategy to cure most people living with HIV. Scientists believe these individuals then develop an immune system resistant to HIV. Doctors then transplant stem cells from individuals with a specific genetic mutation in which they lack receptors used by the virus to infect cells. Patients in the trial first undergo chemotherapy to kill off the cancerous immune cells. ![]() It aims to follow 25 people with HIV who undergo a transplant with stem cells taken from umbilical cord blood for the treatment of cancer and other serious conditions. The case is part of a larger US-backed study led by Dr Yvonne Bryson of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), and Dr Deborah Persaud of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. "This is now the third report of a cure in this setting, and the first in a woman living with HIV," Sharon Lewin, President-Elect of the International AIDS Society, said in a statement. The two prior cases occurred in males - one white and one Latino - who had received adult stem cells, which are more frequently used in bone marrow transplants. Since receiving the cord blood to treat her acute myeloid leukemia - a cancer that starts in blood-forming cells in the bone marrow - the woman has been in remission and free of the virus for 14 months, without the need for potent HIV treatments known as antiretroviral therapy. The case of a middle-aged woman of mixed race, presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunisitic Infections in Denver, is also the first involving umbilical cord blood, a newer approach that may make the treatment available to more people. A US patient with leukemia has become the first woman and the third person to date to be cured of HIV after receiving a stem cell transplant from a donor who was naturally resistant to the virus that causes AIDS, researchers reported on Tuesday. ![]()
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