The first person known to be cured of HIV infection, Timothy Ray Brown, has died. He was 54.
Brown was long known as “the Berlin patient” for where his historic treatment took place.
He died Tuesday at his home in Palm Springs, California, according to his partner.
The cause was a return of the cancer that originally prompted the unusual bone marrow and cell transplants Brown received in 2007 and 2008, which for years seemed to have eliminated both his leukemia and HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
His case inspired more research toward a cure, something that many scientists had thought impossible until his example proved that it was.
