An American research team reported that it has possibly cured HIV in a woman for the first time. These scientists used a cutting-edge stem cell transplant method that they expect will expand the pool of people who could receive similar treatment. (via NBC)
for people with blood malignancies who lack HLA-identical donors. First, the cancer patient receives a transplant of umbilical cord blood, which contains stem cells that amount to a powerful nascent immune system. A day later, they receive a larger graft of adult stem cells. The adult stem cells flourish rapidly, but over time they are entirely replaced by cord blood cells.
For the New York patient, who has a mixed-race ancestry, the Weill Cornell team and its collaborators found the HIV-resistant genetic abnormality in the umbilical cord blood of an infant donor. They paired a transplant of those cells with stem cells from an adult donor. Both donors were only a partial HLA match to the woman, but the combination of the two transplants allowed for this.
The woman’s transplant engrafted very well. She has been in remission from her leukemia for more than four years. Three years after her transplant, she and her clinicians discontinued her HIV treatment. Fourteen months later, she still has experienced no resurgent virus.