Berlin, Oct 14. (dpa/GNA) – Thomas Kahlert, an employee of Berlin’s Charité Hospital for 38 years, and known as the “second Berlin patient,” said he is “very well” on Wednesday, at the opening of the Charité’s new HIV cure research centre, BeCURE.
He is one of 13 people worldwide, who are considered cured of HIV.
Kahlert, now 62, was found to have HIV during a routine examination in 2009. In 2015 he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia, a form of blood cancer.
Because of the leukaemia, a stem cell transplant was needed in addition to chemotherapy.
On October 14, 2015, exactly 11 years ago, Kahlert received stem cells from a healthy donor. Since then, neither human immunodeficiency viruses nor cancer cells have been detectable, and he is considered cured.
HIV attacks the body’s immune cells at certain docking points, known as CCR5 receptors. According to the Charité, about 1% of people of European descent have a mutation of these CCR5 receptors, known as the delta-32 mutation.
This mutation prevents the virus from entering cells, and carriers are considered naturally immune to HIV.
In the case of the first “Berlin patient,” it had been possible to find a stem cell donor whose tissue characteristics matched the recipient’s and who carried the immunity-conferring mutation. Kahlert’s case involved a somewhat different approach.
Doctors were unable to find a suitable donor with full genetic resistance to HIV. However, the donor that was used had the normal version of the CCR5 receptor on her cells, as well as the mutated version of the docking point.
This is the case when a person inherits the delta-32 mutation from only one parent.
Like the donor, Kahlert is heterozygous, or possessing two different versions of a specific gene.
GNA