Meet the only person to be cured of HIV

Meet Timothy Ray Brown, also known as the “Berlin Patient.”

He’s the only person in history who has been treated successfully for HIV—and it is all thanks to stem cells.

Long before Timothy was diagnosed with HIV he was advocating for safe sex practices in his hometown of Seattle, Washington, a city whose known cases of AIDS were in the dozens by the time he graduated high school. Nobody could have known that the disease Brown fought against would affect him for years to come.

“When I was diagnosed with HIV, there were no possible treatments,” Tim says of that time. “People were even dying from the medication, it was so toxic.”

After he was diagnosed, Tim knew he was living on borrowed time. He moved to Berlin, escaping the stigma that came with HIV where he was living at the time, and found a community of acceptance and understanding. He lived abroad for more than a decade, carefully managing his infection with antiretroviral drugs. But during a trip to New York City in 2006, Timothy’s life was turned upside down all over again. situs judi slot promo

“I was just very tired,” he recalls. “I didn’t know what was going on.”

Doctors initially struggled to identify what was wrong. They thought it was just jet lag, maybe anemia. But soon after his first visit, the doctors diagnosed him with leukemia..

It was yet another death sentence. But Tim’s doctors had a remarkable plan.

To treat his leukemia, his doctors wanted to wipe out his immune system with radiation and chemotherapy and then rebuild it with donated stem cells. This is one of the standard bone cancer treatments. The twist was, Tim’s bone marrow donor was immune to HIV.

Tim received two transplants of bone marrow stem cells, one from this HIV-immune donor. Then, there was nothing to do but wait. As his doctors waited, Tim stopped taking his antiretroviral drugs. No one knew if the treatment would affect his HIV infection.

A decade later, Tim is cancer and HIV free.

Since his cure, Timothy has continued to advocate for stem cell therapies. From speaking at conferences and universities, being featured on an episode of HBO’s VICE, and starting his own foundation to help HIV patients, he is dedicated to his belief that cures should be available to everyone.

“After I was cured of both HIV and leukemia, I decided that I needed to give back to the community and become involved.”

“I deeply support the science going on, and I feel that I need to be here. I’m the only patient to be cured of HIV, and I want there to be more.”

Tim’s hope could soon be more than just hope. Made possible by the passage of California’s stem cell research initiative in 2004, Proposition 71, there is a Phase 1/2 trial in progress for HIV/AIDS. Run by CalImmune, blood stem cells and certain kinds of immune cells are removed from the patient with HIV. These cells are modified outside of the body to carry two genes that make the cells resistant to HIV. When the cells are infused back into the patient, the cells should be protected from HIV, ideally to the point where the patient does not even need to take antiretroviral drugs. situs judi slot promo