In March 2019, doctors in London announced that they had cured a person of H.I.V. — only the second ever to have been freed of the virus. After much deliberation, the “London patient,” as he has become known, told The New York Times that he wanted to reveal his identity and to tell his story.

“This is a unique position to be in, a unique and very humbling position,” he said. “I want to be an ambassador of hope.”

Who is the ‘London patient’?

His name is Adam Castillejo, age 40. Born in Venezuela, he has lived in London for nearly 20 years. The announcement of Mr. Castillejo’s cure last year electrified the scientific community and energized the pursuit of strategies for curing H.I.V.

The only other person to have been cured, 12 years earlier, is Timothy Ray Brown, known as the “Berlin patient.” The odds were not in Mr. Castillejo’s favor, so his success revitalized scientists who had begun to question whether Mr. Brown’s case was a fluke.