A UK-based male patient’s HIV has become “undetectable” following a stem cell transplant — in only the second case of its kind in the world, scientists led by an Indian-origin researcher reported Tuesday in a study published in the journal Nature.
The ‘London patient’, who has not been named, was diagnosed with HIV in 2003 and advanced Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2012. Professor Ravindra Gupta said the patient was treated with stem cell transplants from donors carrying a genetic mutation that prevents expression of an HIV receptor CCR5.
The subject of the new study has been in remission for 18 months after his antiretroviral therapy (ARV) was discontinued, he said.
“At the moment the only way to treat HIV is with medications that suppress the virus, which people need to take for their entire lives, posing a particular challenge in developing countries,” said Gupta from University College London (UCL), the study’s lead author
“Finding a way to eliminate the virus entirely is an urgent global priority, but is particularly difficult because the virus integrates into the white blood cells of its host,” he said in a statement.
The team, which comprised of researchers at UCL and Imperial College London as well as partners at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford, said the latest case is a proof of the concept that scientists will one day be able to end AIDS, caused by HIV, but does not mean a cure for HIV has been found.