From today’s TOI Top Ten. In 2007, a German doctor told the world that a "Berlin patient" was successfully cured of the infection of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Scientists have since been trying to replicate the feat, to no avail. But now, a breakthrough has been achieved. Scientists and medical experts say a "London patient" has now been cured — the technical term they are using is 'remission' as the isolated case doesn't mean the treatment is ready to be used on everyone. The "Berlin patient" was later identified as Timothy Ray Brown, and is now 52 and lives in California. Brown also had leukaemia, and after chemotherapy failed, doctors suggested bone-marrow transplants. The transplants were from a donor with a mutation in a protein called CCR5, which rests on the surface of certain immune cells. HIV uses the protein to enter those cells but cannot latch on to the mutated version. Post the transplant, Brown was cured of the infection. But Brown was given harsh immunosuppressive drugs of a kind that are no longer used, reports the New York Times, and suffered intense complications for months. He was placed in an induced coma at one point. But the London patient's case offers a ray of hope. The patient, who had lymphoma, received a bone marrow transplant from a donor who had the mutated CCR5 in 2016. His treatment was less intense, and in September 2017 he stopped taking anti-HIV drugs. In effect, the transplant destroyed the HIV virus. But scientists are not prescribing a bone-marrow transplant. Instead, they are exploring gene-therapy treatment that could help develop mutated CCR5 on immune cells or stem cells. Several companies are, in fact, have been working on it — none successful yet. FYI: Remember the case of gene-edited babies in China? The scientist who conducted it said he did it to modify CCR5 so that the children are immune to HIV. Roland. Toronto
