Stem Cell Transplant Potentially "Cures" Second HIV Patient

Although cautious about using the word “cure,” researchers have described a second person globally to be cleared of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The first patient was Timothy Ray Brown, also dubbed the “Berlin Patient,” who was cured of HIV in 2007. The new study was published in the journal Nature. The new patient, who remains unnamed, is dubbed the “London Patient.��� Both Timothy Brown and the new patient were treated with stem cell transplants from donors carrying a rare genetic mutation called CCR5-delta 32. This made these patients resistant to HIV. The new patient has been in remission for 18 months after he stopped receiving antiretroviral drugs. “By achieving remission in a second patient using a similar approach, we have shown that the Berlin Patient was not an anomaly and that it really was the treatment approaches that eliminated HIV in these two people,” said Ravindra Gupta, lead author of the study and a researcher at the Division of Infection and Immunity at the University College London (UCL), reported CNN.