Three HIV patients have had nearly all traces of the virus removed from their bodies after receiving extensive bone marrow transplants, doctors from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard revealed during this week's 2012 International AIDS Conference.
In their official report, researchers explained the procedure is not only risky and costly, but is likely effective on only a small percentage of HIV/AIDS patients.
Timothy Brown, the first patient to receive the treatment, says he believe she is cured even though very small amounts of the virus appear in his blood after being eradicated from his bones.
"For the first time ever there is now a 'proof of concept,' as scientists like to call it, for an effective cure. The case of Timothy Brown, the so-called 'Berlin Patient,' who received a stem-cell bone-marrow transplant in 2007 and is now considered to be cured of HIV, has proved that a cure is at least possible," the report stated.
"This stem cell transplant worked because the donor was among the one percent of Northern Europeans who lack CCR5, the 'doorway' through which HIV enters cells."
CCR5, or C-C chemokine receptor type 5, is a protein on the surface of white blood cells through which AIDS enters and infects host cells.
And while the costly and risky procedure would likely prove ineffective on the majority of patients, the researchers added it "has nevertheless got scientists thinking about the use of gene therapy to modify a patient's own immune cells to make them resistant to HIV infection."
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