Scientists cure Aids with stem cell transplant

Scientists in Germany say they have "overthrown the dogma that HIV can never be cured" after they successfully cured a 40-year-old man of the virus which causes Aids. Timothy Ray Brown was HIV positive before a blood transplant in 2007 – but is now clear.

Brown, an American leukaemia sufferer living in Berlin, was given a stem cell blood transplant from a donor who was one of the one per cent of people born with immunity to the HIV virus. Three years later, Brown is neither suffering from leukaemia nor Aids.

The remarkable breakthrough is more symbolic than anything else at this stage, as the extreme transplant technique is not recommended or applicable for anybody who is not in the grip of cancer.

The radical procedure involves destroying the patient's own immune system with drugs and radiation, then using donor cells to cultivate an entirely new one. The risks involved are tremendous, with mortality from the procedure at 5 per cent.

However, it is thought the discovery may lead researchers in the direction of a universal cure – though this would still be very far off. Gene therapy techniques could be used to transform the patient's existing immune system to an HIV-resistant one, obviating the need for a transplant.

The latest report on the 2007 transplant, published this week in the US scientific journal Blood, says that: "It is reasonable to conclude that cure of HIV infection has been achieved in this patient."

However, friends of Brown say they have noticed a change in his personality brought about by side effects of the treatment – and, interviewed by a German magazine, he hinted he might prefer not to have been cured at such cost. ·