Timothy Ray Brown, the first person known to have been cured of HIV infection, says he is now terminally ill from a recurrence of the cancer that prompted his historic treatment 12 years ago. Brown, dubbed "the Berlin patient" because of where he lived at the time, had a transplant from a donor with a rare, natural resistance to the AIDS virus. For years, that was thought to have cured his leukemia and his HIV infection, and he still shows no signs of HIV.

But in an interview with The Associated Press, Brown said his cancer returned last year and has spread widely. He's receiving hospice care where he now lives in Palm Springs, California. "I'm still glad that I had it," Brown said of his transplant. "It opened up doors that weren't there before" and inspired scientists to work harder to find a cure, which many had begun to think was not possible, the 54-year-old said Thursday. "Timothy proved 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, San Francisco, who has worked with Brown to further research toward a cure.