Stem-Cell Transplant Essentially Cures HIV Patient

A California man who has been HIV-positive for more than half of his life is in long-term remission, his doctors said on Wednesday, offering hope about a potential road to a cure. After being diagnosed with leukemia in 2019, the 66-year-old received a transplant of blood stem cells with a rare mutation; he is one of five patients to have been cured by such treatment. The mutation is rare—meaning that the treatment is currently unavailable to most of the world’s HIV-positive patients—though doctors believe that they may be able to mimic it with gene editing and thus expand the treatment’s applications. The Washington Post reported that bone marrow transplants are also quite risky and thus have so far only been used in HIV-positive patients who have cancer. “I never thought I would live to see the day that I no longer have HIV,” the patient said.