Mutations were carried out on the bone marrows of two HIV patients to block HIV from entering their cells, essentially replacing their deficient immune systems with one that could fight the virus.
On the 10th of July 2020, Albert Mckeon published an article for Northrop gumman concerning a new remedy for HIV. A stem cell transplant has cured two HIV patients, Albert reports.
Antiretroviral therapy medicine controls HIV and prevents complications, but it’s not a remedy. When HIV patients are cured, the world stops to take notice. And the world did just that in 2007, when it was announced someone identified only as the “Berlin Patient” had fully healed from HIV.
He was named as such because the announcement was made in the capital of Germany, and he also lived and was treated there. He initially sought anonymity, but in 2015 revealed his identity: Timothy Ray Brown, an American. “I did not want to be the only person in the world cured of HIV; I wanted other HIV patients to join my club,” Brown wrote in an AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses article.
A leukaemia patient, Brown had a stem cell transplant from a donor with a specific genetic mutation that was resistant to HIV. It is believed that the transplant populated Brown’s body with cells that are unaffected by the virus. He was also cured of leukaemia.
Now, a second cured HIV patient has come forward. In 2019, the virologist Adam Gupta and colleagues revealed that the “London Patient” had received transplanted bone marrow to treat lymphoma and similarly had been healed of HIV, as outlined in a paper they wrote for The Lancet HIV. As seen with Brown, donated bone marrow carried a mutation that blocked HIV from entering the cells of the London Patient, essentially replacing his deficient immune system with one that could fight the virus. His lymphoma is in remission.
Earlier this year, the mystery patient revealed himself: Adam Castillejo, a native of Venezuela who now lives in London. “This is a unique position to be in, a unique and very humbling position,” he told the New York Times in an article that disclosed his identity. “I want to be an ambassador of hope.”
