Medical history was written recently, after a patient with both leukemia and HIV received a bone marrow transplant and both diseases appear to have disappeared completely.

But the case wasn’t as easy as it seems. The American patient living in Berlin has, as aforementioned, two very destructive and damaging diseases, one of the worst known to mankind. One the one hand, he had leukemia, which is a cancer that affects the blood and bone marrow. It presents itself by multiplication of leukocytes, also known as white blood cells. On the other hand, he also had the HIV virus, which is a member of the retrovirus family. The virus can be transmitted by blood, semen, vaginal fluid, pre-ejaculated fluid or breast milk. The virus leads to the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, AIDS.

He doctors arranged for a bone marrow transplant for the patient, which is the best cure for leukemia. The bone marrow transplant implies taking stem cells from the healthy immune system of a donor, which is used to replace the cancerous cells of the patient receiving the transplant.

In this case, the donor had a genetic mutation that made him resistant to the AIDS infection. This mutation modifies CCR5, a receptor used by AIDS to enter the cells it will infect. The match was unbelievable. After the transplant, the doctors noticed that not only was the leukemia gone, but the HIV was nowhere to be found in the patient’s body. The scientists investigated the blood stream and also other reservoirs known to be “hiding places” used by HIV. It wasn’t there either, nor is it now, more than 20 months after the transplant.

However, this cannot be used as a treatment for HIV, unless there is an underlying condition that has permanently damaged the bone marrow. Other are skeptical as to the vanishing of HIV, mainly given that – at least so far - there is no cure for HIV and the virus is always fatal. It can be kept under control with the prescribed cocktail, but it never goes away. The gene mutation seems a better place to start when looking for a cure for HIV, as gene therapy may allow us to treat HIV-infected patients.