Small study hints that revving up immune cells might help fight HIV
[May 13, 2026]
By LAURAN NEERGAARD
WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists are tweaking a powerful cancer therapy in
hopes it could fight HIV instead, by supercharging patients' own immune
cells.
On Tuesday, researchers said a single dose of those revved-up cells
strongly suppressed HIV in two people — one for nearly a year and the
other for nearly two years — without requiring their usual medicines.
Larger and longer studies are needed to prove if what's called CAR-T
cell therapy might really offer long-lasting help for HIV, cautioned Dr.
Steven Deeks of the University of California, San Francisco, who led the
research.
“We find the fact that two people have had such a really sustained
response provocative,” he said. “There is a real need for a
one-and-done, safe and scalable cure ... and this is one of the
strategies that we’re pursuing.”
The data is being presented at a meeting of the American Society of Gene
and Cell Therapy in Boston.
There are nearly 40 million people living with HIV around the world.
Today’s medicines have turned the virus that causes AIDS from a fast
killer into a manageable chronic disease, often keeping the virus at
undetectable levels, but only if people can afford the drugs and stick
with them. The virus hides out in reservoirs in the body and rebounds
fast if people stop treatment.
Researchers have long hunted an elusive cure, pursuing such clues as a
rare gene mutation that makes some people naturally resistant to HIV or
how a handful of HIV patients who also had certain cancers were declared
cured or in long-term remission after receiving a stem cell transplant,
something too risky for most people.
CAR-T therapy involves taking immune soldiers called T cells out of a
person’s blood, genetically engineering them into “living drugs” and
infusing them back into the patient. They’re widely used to cure certain
types of cancer and are being studied for other diseases.
For HIV, scientists at the nonprofit drug developer Caring Cross created
CAR-T cells with dual features. They're programmed to better find and
kill HIV-infected cells — and engineered with protection against
infection by the very virus they’re supposed to fight.
With that added armor, they should be able to reproduce enough to keep
HIV in check, said Caring Cross executive director Boro Dropulić.
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Dr. Steven Deeks at the UCSF Division of HIV Infectious Diseases and
Global Medicine on May 5, 2026, in San Francisco. (AP photo/Haven
Daley)
 Deeks’ early-stage experiment tested
different dosing strategies in people who stopped their HIV medicine
the day they received their CAR-T cells. There were no serious side
effects. The first three recipients showed no response and resumed
their usual medicines.
Six others received a small amount of chemotherapy to make space for
the new T cells. Those two strong responders saw their HIV drop to
undetectable levels, inching up only occasionally when the CAR-T
cells presumably got to work again. A third patient had a temporary
response and resumed regular HIV treatment.
Those three patients all had started their original HIV treatment
soon after they'd been infected, Deeks said. That makes sense
because people treated early tend to have less HIV hiding in the
body and a healthier immune system.
“This is certainly very fascinating that they’ve had this positive
response,” said Dr. Hans-Peter Kiem, a gene therapy expert at
Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center who wasn’t part of the new
study. He cautioned that it will take additional research to prove
if CAR-T really works.
But the strategy is exciting because it’s “boosting what our body,
our immune system, can already do,” said Andrea Gramatica, vice
president for research at amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research,
which is funding some work to create easier-to-use versions.
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