Timothy Ray Brown said his cancer came back last year and spread widely. He receives hospice care where he now lives in Palm Springs, California.
Timothy Ray Brown, the first person known to be cured of HIV infection, says he is now terminally ill with a recurrence of the cancer that prompted his landmark treatment 12 years ago.
Brown, nicknamed “the Berlin patient” because of where he lived at the time, received a transplant from a donor with rare natural resistance to the AIDS virus. For years it was thought to have cured his leukemia and HIV infection, and he still shows no signs of HIV.
But in an interview with The Associated Press, Brown said her cancer returned last year and spread widely. He receives hospice care where he now lives in Palm Springs, California.
“I’m still glad I got it,” Brown said of his transplant.
“It opened doors that didn’t exist before” and inspired scientists to work harder to find a cure, which many had started to believe was not possible, the 54-year-old said on Thursday. years.
“Timothy has proven that HIV can be cured, but that’s not what inspires me about him,” said Dr. Steven Deeks, an AIDS specialist at the University of California at San Francisco, who worked with Brown to advance research into a cure.
“We took pieces of his intestine, we took pieces of his lymph nodes. Whenever he was asked to do something, he presented himself with incredible grace, ”Deeks said.
Brown was an American working as a translator in Berlin in the 1990s when he learned he was HIV positive. In 2006, he was diagnosed with leukemia.
Dr Gero Huetter, a blood cancer expert at the University of Berlin, believed that a bone marrow transplant was Brown’s best chance to beat leukemia. He wondered if he could also cure Brown’s other potentially fatal disease by using a donor with a genetic mutation that provides natural resistance to the AIDS virus?
Such donors are very rare and transplants are risky. Doctors must destroy the patient’s diseased immune system with chemotherapy and radiation therapy, then transplant the donor cells and hope that they will develop into a new immune system for the recipient.
Brown’s first transplant in 2007 was only partially successful: his HIV seemed to be gone, but not his leukemia. He had a second transplant from the same donor in March 2008 and it appeared to be working.
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Since then, Brown has tested negative for HIV several times and has appeared frequently at AIDS conferences where cure research is discussed.
“He’s been like an ambassador of hope,” said Brown’s partner Tim Hoeffgen.
A second man, Adam Castillejo – called ‘the London patient’ until he revealed his identity earlier this year – was also reportedly cured with a transplant similar to Brown’s in 2016.
But such donors are rare and the procedure is too risky to be widely used.
Scientists have tested gene therapy and other means to try to achieve the effect of the favorable gene mutation without having to do a transplant. At an AIDS conference in July, researchers said they may have reached a long-term remission in a Brazilian by using a potent combination of drugs designed to remove dormant HIV from her body.
Mark King, a man from Baltimore who writes a blog for people living with HIV, said he spoke to Brown earlier this week and was grateful for what Brown contributed to the research on AIDS.
“It is unfathomable what value it has been to the world as a subject of science. And yet he’s also a human being who’s a kind, humble guy who certainly never asked for the limelight, ”King said. “I think the world of him.”
