In a groundbreaking medical announcement made Monday, a 63-year-old Norwegian man has been pronounced functionally cured of HIV, marking one of the raiest and most hopeful breakthroughs in global HIV research in recent years. Dubbed the “Oslo patient,” he becomes the first person worldwide to achieve long-term HIV remission following a stem cell transplant from a related family member, joining a small group of fewer than 10 people globally who have reached this milestone after receiving transplants to treat concurrent blood cancer.
The patient had lived with an HIV diagnosis since 2006, before receiving a devastating secondary diagnosis of myelodysplastic syndrome, a life-threatening blood cancer, in 2017. His care team at Oslo University Hospital launched a search for a suitable donor that could address both conditions, ultimately turning to the patient’s older brother when no matching unrelated donor with the required genetic trait was found. In a stunning twist of fate revealed on the day of the 2020 transplant, doctors discovered the brother unknowingly carried the rare CCR5Δ32 genetic mutation—an alteration that blocks HIV from entering and infecting human immune cells. Only 1% of northern European populations carry this rare protective mutation.
“It was like winning the lottery twice,” lead study author Dr. Anders Eivind Myhre, of Oslo University Hospital, told Agence France-Presse. The case study detailing the achievement was published in the journal *Nature Microbiology*. Two years post-transplant, when the patient discontinued his daily antiretroviral therapy that had long kept his viral load suppressed, researchers found no trace of replicating HIV in samples of his blood, bone marrow, or intestinal tissue. “For all practical purposes, we are quite certain that he is cured,” Myhre confirmed. The patient, who has chosen to remain anonymous, is now thriving with abundant energy and reports enjoying a full, unrestricted life, according to his care team.
Unlike the handful of prior cured HIV cases that relied on unrelated donor transplants, the Oslo case marks the first time a successful cure has been achieved with a family member donor. Study co-author Dr. Marius Troseid of the University of Oslo explained that the patient’s entire immune system has been fully replaced by the donor’s genetically resistant cells—a complete reconstitution that has been clearly documented in both his bone marrow and gut tissue for the first time in any cured HIV patient. Given his current excellent health, Troseid noted that the “Oslo patient” label may no longer fit: “The Oslo patient is perhaps no longer a patient. At least he doesn’t feel like it.”
This achievement builds on a decades-long line of incremental breakthroughs, starting with the first ever declared HIV cure, that of Timothy Ray Brown, the “Berlin patient,” in 2008. Subsequent cases have since been reported in London, New York, Geneva, Düsseldorf, and other cities around the world, with one 2024 case even achieving long-term remission without a donor carrying two copies of the mutated CCR5 gene, expanding researchers’ understanding of what makes a cure possible.
Crucially, experts stress that the high-risk, invasive stem cell transplant procedure remains only an option for the small subset of people living with HIV who also have a life-threatening blood cancer, making it completely unfeasible for the more than 38 million people globally living with HIV. Still, researchers remain optimistic that the insights gained from studying these rare, successful cases will deepen scientific understanding of how HIV persists in the body and pave the way for a widely accessible cure that can help all people living with the virus end their lifelong reliance on antiretroviral treatment.