Charité names second Berlin patient cured of HIV and opens new cure centre

Charité hospital in Berlin confirmed that the individual previously referred to only as the “second Berlin patient” is Thomas Kahlert, a long-time employee who was diagnosed with HIV in 2009 and acute myeloid leukaemia in 2015. He underwent a stem-cell transplant from a donor sharing a mixed CCR5-delta-32 mutation, followed by chemotherapy, and has remained free of detectable HIV and cancer for 11 years, leading doctors to deem him cured.

The hospital used the ceremony to launch the new BeCURE HIV cure research centre, which will pursue targeted antibody, immunotherapy and gene-cell strategies based on Kahlert’s treatment. To date, only 13 individuals, including the first Berlin patient Timothy Ray Brown—who died in 2020 after his leukaemia returned—are recognized as cured of HIV. Researchers noted that about 1 % of people of European descent carry the CCR5-delta-32 mutation that blocks viral entry. The BeCURE team aims to turn remission into a viable therapeutic option for the roughly 41 million people living with HIV worldwide.