HIV, Leukemia Patient from New York Becomes the First Mixed-Race Woman to Possibly Cured

A patient from New York becomes the first mixed-race woman to be successfully treated with HIV, who has been without HIV since 2017. She was treated through a new method that transplants HIV-resistance stem cells from umbilical cord blood.

New Method of Transplant

Scientists were able to treat leukemia and HIV patient through a new method to cure human immunodeficiency virus. According to a report from EurekAlert, transplanting HIV-resistant stem cells from umbilical cord blood helped scientists to achieve curing the patient.

This method of using stem cells from umbilical cord blood increases the likelihood of a certain person curing HIV, than the traditional stem cells obtained from compatible adult donors.

Compared to the traditional transplant, stem cells from umbilical cord blood are both more readily available and do not need to be matched as closely as adult cells do as it broadens the opportunities for people of diverse ancestry.

The patient becomes the first mixed-race woman to be possibly cured of the virus. She is no longer taking drugs to suppress the virus and has been living without HIV since 2017. However, researchers described her case as possibly one of long-term remission.

Researchers stressed through the study that stem cell transplants are not realistic for HIV treatment on their own given the potential risk of the procedure, as it causes a highly invasive nature and side effects that are described as brutal.

Patients of Color with HIV

The University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine Professor Yvonne Bryson stated, "The HIV epidemic is racially diverse, and it's exceedingly rare for persons of color or diverse race to find a sufficiently matched, unrelated adult donor." Brysonne co-led the study with infectious disease expert and fellow pediatrician Deborah Persaud.

Finding suitable, HIV-resistant donors for patients of color became very difficult and much easier for white people as stem cell donors must be carefully matched to patients, including by race and ethnicity.

Forbes reported that only three people have been confirmed clear of HIV all of whom beat the virus after receiving bone marrow transplants from donors who are naturally resistant to the virus.

A patient from Berlin became the first person to be cured of HIV in 2009. This was followed by two other patients that came from London and Düsseldorf. All of these patients received stem cell transplants for their cancer treatments.

Interesting Engineering reported that the donor cells came from compatible adults with two copies of the CCR5-delta32 mutation, which is a natural occurrence that gives resistance to the virus and blocks it from entering and infecting cells.

However, only 1% of all white people are compatible with this mutation. Additionally, this is much lesser in other populations and ethnicities. This is where the limitation came from, hence why the researchers conducted the study.