Up until now, we’ve never been able to say that a person infected with HIV/AIDS has been cured. As I said, up until now.
You see, in 2006, something incredible happened in a hospital in Berlin. It was there, thanks to a unique and risky stem cell transplant, that a man may have become the very first person ever to be fully cured of HIV/AIDS.
This man’s name has not been released; he’s only known as the Berlin patient. But we know he’s an HIV-positive American in his 40s who has been working in Berlin. In 2006, he was diagnosed with acute leukemia. In an attempt to treat his leukemia AND his HIV, the man’s doctor — Dr. Gero Hütter — arranged for him to receive a stem cell transplant from a very special donor.
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Ever since that transplant, the Berlin patient has had an undetectable viral load even though he hasn’t been on HIV/AIDS treatment since before the transplant. The man has generously allowed scientists to take almost every possible biopsy and test, including the most ultrasensitive HIV tests available, but HIV has not been detected anywhere in his body. It’s now almost three years since this operation and HIV still seems not to have reemerged. His story inspires new hope that some sort of gene therapy may be the key to an HIV cure.
Dr. Jeffrey Laurence, the chief scientist at amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, has become the main contact in the U.S. regarding the Berlin patient, and he remains in close contact with Dr. Hütter, the Berlin patient’s doctor. In September of 2008, Dr. Laurence organized a fascinating think tank of top HIV scientists to discuss the patient’s case. They all agreed that the patient is “functionally cured.” In this interview, Dr. Laurence tells us a little about that meeting, and about the Berlin patient’s amazing story.
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