Doctors in Germany have successfully controlled HIV infection by transplanting bone marrow cells from an HIV-resistant donor. This extraordinary case has important implications for the future treatment of HIV, a disease that kills millions each year.

Globally, 33 million people are living with HIV and the condition causes 2 million deaths each year. Although HIV-infected people are living longer than ever before because of modern drug therapy, these drugs are costly and limited by side effects and the development of resistance in HIV. Crucially, drug therapy suppresses the infection but does not offer a cure.

Speaking at the 35th Annual Meeting of the European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT), Professor Eckhard Thiel (Department of Hematology, Oncology and Transfusion Medicine, Charité University Hospital, Berlin, Germany) reported that the transplantation of stem cells from people who are naturally resistant to HIV could offer a new direction in HIV research and therapy.

In order to infect human cells, HIV must interact with two receptors on the cell surface: one is called CD4 and the second is usually one called CCR5. About 1-3 in a hundred people do not express these CCR5 receptors owing to a genetic abnormality (called a 'homozygous CCR5 delta32 deletion')…