Second man seems to be free of AIDS virus after transplant
March 4, 2019 at 8:36 p.m.
| Updated March 4, 2019 at 8:37 p.m.
by
Associated Press
This undated photo provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows a scanning electron micrograph of multiple round bumps of the HIV-1 virus on a cell surface. In a report released on Monday, July 24, 2017, researchers said a South African girl born with the AIDS virus has kept her infection suppressed for 8 1/2 years after stopping anti-HIV medicines _ more evidence that early treatment can occasionally cause a long remission that, if it lasts, would be a form of cure. (Cynthia Goldsmith/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention via AP)
SEATTLE (AP) - Researchers say a London man appears to be free of the AIDS virus after a stem cell transplant. It's the second such success since "Berlin patient" Timothy Ray Brown more than a decade ago.
Such transplants are dangerous and have failed in other patients. The new findings were published online Monday by the journal Nature.
The London patient has not been identified. He was diagnosed with HIV in 2003. He developed cancer and agreed to a stem cell transplant to treat the cancer in 2016.
His doctors found a donor with a gene mutation that confers natural resistance to HIV.
The transplant changed the London patient's immune system, giving him the donor's HIV resistance.
