After a bone marrow transplant with a genetic mutation that prevents HIV from entering cells, a German becomes the third patient to be cured of AIDS.
- A patient is cured of AIDS thanks to a bone marrow transplant.
- The bone marrow donor carried the CCR5 delta-32 genetic mutation, which naturally prevents HIV from entering cells.
- Today the patient is 53 years old and doing well.
“Very happy to have been able to participate in the characterization of a third case of probable cure of HIV infection. This is Marc, “the Dusseldorf patient”, who needed a bone marrow transplant 10 years ago to treat leukemia”, explains on his account Twitter Asier Saez-Cirion, head of the Viral Reservoirs and Immune Control Unit at the Institut Pasteur, to present the study – of which he is co-author – on this case and which has just been published in the journal Nature. Indeed, this study explains the case of a German patient who is now cured of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
A bone marrow transplant with a genetic mutation
In 2010, this patient started antiretroviral treatment to control HIV. This helps to stop the reproduction of the virus in the body, but it does not eliminate it completely. But in 2011, doctors diagnosed the same patient with leukemia, that is to say a cancer of the blood. According the Curie Instituteleukaemias – because there are different types – are characterized by the invasion of the bone marrow by a population of cells, which then pass into the blood.
To treat leukemia, health professionals therefore decide to do a bone marrow transplant, looking for a donor carrying a genetic mutation that naturally prevents HIV from entering cells, this is the CCR5 delta-32 genetic mutation. . The transplant was performed in 2013 and since then the AIDS virus has not been detected in the patient’s body.
“Unfortunately this does not mean that we have a cure for HIV infection. This intervention is complex and entails major risks: it is only offered to people suffering from blood cancer who have no therapeutic alternatives.”, continues Asier Saez-Cirion on his account Twitter. Indeed, for a transplant that can cure leukemia and AIDS to be undertaken, two conditions must be met: finding a donor compatible at the immunogenetic level to avoid rejection and that he be a carrier of the CCR5 delta-32 mutation, this which concerns only less than 1% of the general population. In addition, the operation is very risky.
The patient cured of AIDS
“In the end, it is an exceptional situation when all these factors coincide for this transplant to be a double cure success, for leukemia and HIV“, says Asier Saez-Cirion in a Press release. Today, the 53-year-old patient is in good health and has recovered from leukemia and AIDS. Nevertheless, he specifies in another publication of the review Nature that this bone marrow transplant was a “bumpy road“, in other words, a long journey… but well worth it.
Before this patient, two other people were cured of AIDS in the same way. Even if this solution is not feasible for all patients, these discoveries raise a lot of hope for research and therefore patients. “Different strategies are being studied, concludes Asier Sáez-Cirión. Some seek to specifically target and eliminate infected cells, others to make cells resistant to infection without going through a transplant by introducing, for example, the CCR5 delta-32 mutation via gene therapy, and finally other strategies aim to optimize immune responses against the virus.”
