German hematologists Eckhard Thiel and Gero Huetter of Berlin's Charite Medical University believe they may have cured an AIDS patient of his AIDS by virtue of a bone marrow transplant, given for an unrelated illness. An unidentified 42 yr. old American living in Berlin and suffering from AIDS developed an unrelated leukemia, which the doctors treated with a bone marrow transplant. Now, 20 months after the procedure, doctors can find no sign of AIDS in the patient.

The HIV retrovirus survives inside of white blood cells, all of which are completely eradicated prior to a bone marrow transplant. The white blood cells are then restored from the donor's bone marrow. One American and one European in 1,000 carries a gene mutation which happens to confer resistance to infection of the white blood cells with HIV. In searching for a tissue match for his patient's bone marrow transplant, Dr. Huetter managed to find a donor who was not only a tissue match, but also carried the mutant gene for HIV resistance.

Bone marrow transplants have been attempted before as treatments for HIV. In a 1999 review of 32 such attempts reported in the journal Medical Hypotheses, two apparent cures were reported. None of the prior studies, however, attempted to find donors who were both a tissue match and who carried the gene for HIV resistance.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases in the U.S., said the procedure was too costly and too dangerous to employ as a firstline cure for AIDS, however.