On the heels of World AIDS Day comes a stunning medical breakthrough: Doctors believe an HIV-positive man who underwent a stem cell transplant has been cured as a result of the procedure.

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."

Brown's case paves a path for constructing a permanent cure for HIV through genetically-engineered stem cells.

Last week, Time named another AIDS-related discovery to its list of the Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs of 2010. Recent studies show that healthy individuals who take antiretrovirals, medicine commonly prescribed for treating HIV, can reduce their risk of contracting the disease by up to 73 percent.

While these developments by no means prove a cure for the virus has been found, they can certainly provide hope for the more than 33 million people living with HIV worldwide. Alongside such findings, global efforts to combat the epidemic have accelerated as of late, with new initiatives emerging in the Philippines and South Africa this week.

It's good that it's the genetically engineered stem cells. Less chance of it getting killed for...other reasons.

Maybe I'm the odd one but I prefer my stem cells squeezed fresh from first born babies. Seriously though, this is just amazing. Can't wait to see what this type of leap will effect other forms of research like cancer and heart disease.

Is that kinda like fresh squeezed orange juice with a little pulp?

Hm. On one hand, this is freaking brilliant, and humanity's ability to overcome problems is freaking amazing sometimes.

On the other hand, they're setting up a system (this treatment) which is the ideal way for AIDS to learn/evolve to the point where the system becomes useless. The HIV virus has been astoundingly resilient and adaptive, by putting the selection pressure on a fixed population to find another avenue into a cell besides the CCR5 molecule, you can bet at some point they WILL. Granted, that person would have to then pass the virus on to someone else for this new strain to be widespread, but HIV doesnt seem to have much of a problem spreading. If this new strain which has overcome this temporary 'trickery' (the new blood cells being produced by the new bone marrow) becomes the dominant, popular strain in the AIDS community, then they've opened the disease up to 100% of the general population, instead of the ~99+% which can acquire it as things stand now.

Anyways, interesting as hell, I cant wait to see how this plays out.