The first five cases of “cure” or “long-term remission” in people living with HIV occurred through experimental hematopoietic stem cell transplantations whose donors had the genetic mutation CCR5Δ32/Δ32, which allows resistance against the infection by the virus. These cases have been widely covered by discussions in the biomedical sciences, but not much analytical exercise has been carried on in the social sciences regarding the HIV cure and its practices. From a socio-anthropological perspective, this presentation analyzes the processes of “materialization of the HIV cure” in those experimental transplantation cases. This discussion is based on the content analysis of documents (scientific, journalistic, and biographical) about those who became known as the Berlin, London, Düsseldorf, New York, and City of Hope patients. Since the Timothy Brown case, the “Berlin patient”, announced in 2008, CCR5Δ32/Δ32 hematopoietic stem cell transplantation has been treated as a “promising” technology and a “hope” in the field of research for the HIV cure. However, the technical complexity, the risks involved for patients, and the high costs of the procedures do not allow this to be an accessible alternative for everyone. To guarantee the legitimacy of cure as a concept and practice, nature appears in the techno-scientific discourse as an important ally through markers based on body fluids and tissues (such as blood, intestines, brain-spinal fluid), as well as in the dynamics of the immune system. The patients’ participation, with engagement and witnessing of their experiences, contributed to the legitimization of cures as a possibility and scientific fact. Experimental stem cell transplantations to HIV cure bring us into the paths taken by contemporary techno-biopolitics focused on managing the expectations and human vitality itself, mediated by molecular and individualized biotechnologies.
