Berlin Patient Timothy Ray Brown: HIV Cure?

Doctors who treated a HIV-infected patient suffering from leukemia say a stem cell transplant has left him HIV-free.

Timothy Ray Brown, known in some of the literature as the "Berlin Patient," underwent stem-cell therapy alongside conventional chemotherapy for leukemia—not his HIV infection.

This could be the medical breakthrough of the year, I'm so excited about this. People with HIV have hope of getting a cure soon.

Since Timothy Ray Brow’s procedure proved to be successful, does it mean that a bone marrow transplant is a cure-all for other HIV patients?

Maybe this could be the definitive cure of HIV we've been searching for.

Timothy Ray Brown, also known as the "Berlin Patient," received the transplant in 2007 as part of a lengthy treatment course for leukemia. His doctors recently published a report in the journal Blood affirming that the results of extensive testing strongly suggest that cure of HIV infection has been achieved.

The man received bone marrow from a donor who had natural resistance to HIV infection; this was due to a genetic profile which led to the CCR5 co-receptor being absent from his cells.

Doctors found that long-lived cells belonging Berlin Patient were gradually replaced with the donor’s cells, suggesting that the any lingering population of HIV-infected cells was continuing to decrease in size.

The case has attracted a lot of attention worldwide and many scientists started to investigate the use of stem cell therapy for treatment of HIV in other patients.