A German man appears to have been cured of AIDS. Is this the cure the world has been waiting for?
Timothy Ray Brown was diagnosed with HIV and acute myeloid leukemia in 2007, prompting him to seek care from Germany’s Charite Universitatsmedizin Berlin hospital for the more immediate threat his cancer posed. The 42-year-old Brown underwent extremely aggressive treatment, including chemotherapy (that destroyed the majority of his immune cells) as well as total body irradiation. When earlier treatment didn’t provide expected results, doctors decided to experiment with a risky stem-cell transplant that nearly a third of patients don’t survive. But the miracle is that not only did Brown survive, it appears to have completely cured him of HIV.
Doctors carefully selected a stem cell donor for Brown, choosing one with a bone marrow genetic mutation that’s not only present in a small percentage of people, but which makes him almost totally resistant to HIV. Doctors infused the healthy, HIV-resistant donor cells into Brown’s immune system. And the result: now three years without antiretroviral drugs, extensive tests show no signs of HIV. Or in other words, he’s cured!
It’s unknown if every HIV patient can endure the dangerous, painful, and extremely expensive treatment, or would even want to. But this German approach appears incredibly promising, providing new avenues of gene therapy research and stem cell treatments that may have otherwise been overlooked.
If true this is big news. I pray for a cure in our lifetime.