{"id":60988,"date":"2026-04-14T19:13:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T19:13:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/60988\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T19:13:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T19:13:25","slug":"norwegian-man-is-10th-person-cured-of-hiv-thanks-to-his-brother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/60988\/","title":{"rendered":"Norwegian man is 10th person cured of HIV \u2014 thanks to his brother"},"content":{"rendered":"

After over a decade with HIV, a Norwegian man received a surprise through a stem cell donation from his sibling.<\/p>\n

The gifted bone marrow was originally intended to treat the patient\u2019s rare blood cancer, but researchers noticed a remarkable quirk. The sick man\u2019s brother had a genetic mutation that made his stem cells resistant to the human immunodeficiency virus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Given that discovery, the team at Oslo University Hospital monitored the procedure extremely closely on the off-chance that it might lead to a \u201ccure\u201d for the patient\u2019s HIV. Now, five years and many tests later, that hoped-for outcome has become reality, as reported Monday in the journal Nature Microbiology<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"MicroscopicA microscopic image of an HIV-infected T cell, an integral part of the immune system that protects against germs and disease. NIAID<\/p>\n

The unidentified man, known in medical spheres as the \u201cOslo patient,\u201d is now the 10th person worldwide to be in full, long-term remission from HIV. As of 2024, almost 41 million people were living with the virus, according to the World Health Organization<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Live Science<\/a>, Marius Tr\u00f8seid, an author of the study, said the patient \u201cfeels like he has won the lottery twice \u2026 He was cured of his bone marrow disease, which could be fatal, and he\u2019s also now cured of HIV, most likely.\u201d<\/p>\n

While drugs that manage HIV are widely available, they\u2019re designed to keep the virus from replicating within the body, not to eradicate the virus itself. This means HIV will likely re-emerge if medication is stopped for any reason.<\/p>\n

But in the case of the Oslo patient, the brother\u2019s genetic mutation didn\u2019t just resist the HIV virus. It removed a certain receptor in the white blood cells that typically opens the door for HIV to infect the immune system, giving the virus nowhere to flourish.<\/p>\n

As with any transplant, whether or not the donated tissue would take hold in the patient\u2019s body was a gamble. The HIV-resistant stem cells won out in the end.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"TheBefore the transplant was scheduled, the medical team at the Oslo University Hospital was unaware that the brother of the Oslo patient had a rare genetic mutation that made him HIV-resistant. Google Maps<\/p>\n

In the Oslo patient, the researchers observed changes in the behavior of his immune system\u2019s T cells, which get hijacked by HIV, leaving the body more vulnerable to germs and diseases.<\/p>\n

After the procedure, his T cells eventually stopped behaving like they were under siege.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The operation was so successful that the patient was able to stop taking his HIV medication two years later.<\/p>\n

At four years, his medical team found no traces of any \u201cfunctioning\u201d HIV DNA in his body. And his most recent five-year check-up was consistent, too.<\/p>\n

Still, doctors are hesitant to call the Oslo patient case an outright cure, because the process he and his brother underwent is impossible to replicate at scale.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stem cell transplants like these are seen as \u201crisky reboots of the immune system\u201d and can result in fatal infections, according to ScienceAlert<\/a>. Up to 20% of patients who survive these operations will die within a year post-op.<\/p>\n

Though he eventually pulled through, even the Oslo patient suffered from graft-versus-host disease, a serious complication that can accompany transplants.<\/p>\n

Regardless, the researchers are optimistic about the findings, which they hope will help guide research into future cure methodologies that are more accessible and replicable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis and other studies on HIV cure enhance our understanding of HIV pathology, molecular mechanisms and predictive biomarkers that may be of broader interest\u201d beyond patients treated with this kind of transplant, they wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After over a decade with HIV, a Norwegian man received a surprise through a stem cell donation from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60989,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[393,18198,33608,157,156,4347,33609,33610],"class_list":{"0":"post-60988","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oslo","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-hiv","10":"tag-medical-breakthroughs","11":"tag-norway","12":"tag-oslo","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-stem-cells","15":"tag-transplants"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116404656944848915","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}