First person believed to be cured of AIDS gives hope to researchers

An influential group of scientists gathered this week at the International AIDS Conference in Washington is committing to a goal that just five years ago would have seemed ludicrous: to cure HIV. While acknowledging substantial challenges, they argue that the effort is necessary because the epidemic cannot be contained through treatment and prevention alone. And recent medical and scientific advances — including the case of the first man definitively cured of the human immunodeficiency virus — offer proof that it’s possible.

Timothy Ray Brown, known as the "Berlin Patient" and the only person to have been cured of AIDS, holds a press conference to announce the launch of the Timothy Ray Brown Foundation at the Westin City Center hotel on July 24 in Washington, D.C.

The first person believed to have been cured of AIDS, Timothy Ray Brown, addressed the media in the U.S. for the first time on Tuesday and said that reports he still has the HIV virus are false.
Brown, also known as the “Berlin patient,” says doctors have told him he’s “cured of AIDS and will remain cured.”
Brown was an HIV-positive American who was living in Germany when he developed leukemia. After failing to respond to first-line cancer treatments, he chose to have a bone-marrow transplant in 2007. As his doctors searched for a suitable donor, they looked for one with a rare genetic mutation that disables a receptor known as CCR5, which HIV needs to gain entry into immune cells. Brown had two transplants that not only put his leukemia into remission but replaced his HIV-susceptible immune system with one that could ward off the disease.
Doctors declared him “cured” soon after.
Researchers in California recently found traces of HIV in his tissues. But Brown says any remnants of the virus still in his body are dead and can’t replicate.
He appeared frail but energetic Tuesday, and announced the formation of a new AIDS foundation in his name.
Paula Cannon, a molecular biologist at USC’s Keck School of Medicine, said that until Brown came along, a scientist who proposed HIV cure research “would be laughed out of the room.”
“There’s nothing like success to galvanize the research,” she said. “People are daring to hope again that with a lot of hard work and ingenuity, scientists can deliver.”

(www.thestar.com)