The Man Who Was Cured of HIV and What It Means for a Cure for AIDS
"After chemo, the leukemia came back. Brown’s last chance was a stem-cell transplant from a bone-marrow donor. Hutter had an idea. He knew little about HIV, but he remembered that people with a certain natural genetic mutation are very resistant to the virus. The mutation, called delta 32, disables CCR5, a receptor on the surface of immune-system cells that, in the vast majority of cases, is HIV’s path inside. People with copies from both parents are almost completely protected from getting HIV, and they are relatively common in northern Europe—among Germans, the rate is about one in a hundred. Hutter resolved to see if he could use a stem-cell donor with the delta-32 mutation to cure not just Brown’s leukemia but also his HIV."
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