Career
Brown was diagnosed with Human Immunodeficiency Virus in 1995 while studying in Berlin, Germany, giving him the nickname The Berlin Patient. In 2007, Brown, who was Human Immunodeficiency Virus positive, underwent a procedure known as hematopoietic stem cell transplantation performed by a team of doctors in Berlin, Germany, including Gero Hütter, while undergoing a stem cell transplant for leukemia. From 60 matching donors, they selected a -Δ32 homozygous individual with two genetic copies of a rare variant of a cell surface receptor.
This genetic trait confers resistance to Human Immunodeficiency Virus infection by blocking attachment of Human Immunodeficiency Virus to the cell.
Roughly 10% of people of European ancestry have this inherited mutation, but it is rarer in other populations. The transplant was repeated a year later after a relapse.
Over three years after the initial transplant and despite discontinuing antiretroviral therapy, researchers cannot detect Human Immunodeficiency Virus in the transplant recipient"s blood or in various biopsies. Levels of Human Immunodeficiency Virus-specific antibodies have also declined, leading to speculation that the patient may have been functionally cured of Human Immunodeficiency Virus. However, scientists emphasise that this is an unusual case.
Potentially fatal transplant complications (the "Berlin patient" suffered from graft-versus-host disease and leukoencephalopathy) mean that the procedure could not be performed in others with Human Immunodeficiency Virus, even if sufficient numbers of suitable donors were foundation
In 2012, Daniel Kuritzkes reported results of two stem cell transplants in patients with Human Immunodeficiency Virus. They did not, however, use donors with the Δ32 deletion. After their transplant procedures, both were put on antiretroviral therapies, during which neither showed traces of Human Immunodeficiency Virus in their blood plasma and purified CD4 T cells using a sensitive culture method (less than 3 copies/mL). However, the virus was once again detected in both patients some time after the discontinuation of therapy.
