Scientists have created a consortium to help them better understand and potentially achieve a cure based on stem cell transplants, as seen in the Berlin Patient, the man whose HIV and leukemia were cured following two such transplants. The EpiStem consortium helps clinicians who have HIV-positive patients in need of stem cell transplantation find donors who, like the Berlin Patient’s, have a genetic variation that causes a natural resistance to HIV. (Individuals can join the program even if such a donor cannot be found.) The consortium also provides counsel on related ethical guidelines and on how to study the persistence of the virus after a cure attempt. The group is currently studying three people who have survived more than three years after a stem cell transplantation; in two of them, no viable virus is detectable in the blood. (These individuals remain on HIV treatment for now, so it’s not known whether they are cured.)