dr. jay levy. he is director of laboratory and human and aids virus. it's such a pleasure to meet you? >> thank you very much. >> i washed this virus from my entire career. an what an amazing experience it must have been for you? >> we didn't realize what when we found it. we thought was an isolated disease in united states and now when we look at the world epidemic the worst to hit human kind it's surprising. >> what were some of the challenges? >> i think the challenge was the fear. if we starred working on aids, at that time it was called grid, it's something that would affect people or the hospital. we had to assure them we had the right bio safety procedures. >> you probably had people in isolation units? >> we had an 80 square foot lab we were looking at viruses that cause cancer. we had a small ante room where you put on a mask and you went into a small room where you could work. >> now, 30 years later. >> it's really something. i wish we could have been here faster. what we went through, lots of deaths. >> but people are living now? >> now, people are living normal lives. many

dr. jay levy one of the codiscoveriers of the hiv virus. >> if you are able to take the white kre8s fromeone and-- cells from someone and manipulate them so they are no longer infectable by hiv and those white cells become the whole immune system of that individual, you've got essentially what we call a functional cure. >> reporter: we also sought out a medical opinion from dr. paul volberding, another pioneering aids experts who studied the disease for all of its 30 years. >> one element of his treatment, and we don't know which, allowed, apparently, the virus to be purged from his body. so it is going to be an interesting, i think, productive area of the study. >> they say he's cured. >> well, knock on wood. >> reporter: timothy brown's radical procedure may not be applicable to many other people with hiv because of the difficulty in doing stem cell transplants and finding the right donor. but this one case does open the door to the field of cure research which is now gaining more attention. >> i'm cured of hiv. i had hiv but i don't any more. >> reporter: words that so many in the sci

dr. jay levy has been studying for decades called natural immunity and some long-term survivors definitely have it. >> these individuals have the virus, no drugs are needed. they are perfectly healthy. they are working. you wouldn't know they have hiv. in a way, that's one of the reasons why it was such a surprise because most people feel when you get a virus you get a disease. >> reporter: how many people have you found like that? >> so we have had at least 60, 70 like that. we have five individuals who have been infected for more than 30 years and are perfectly healthy. and they carry the virus. >> reporter: his goal now is to try to turn on that natural immunity in other people with hiv to prevent them from progressing to full-blown aids. it's one more weapon in a growing arsenal of research and treatment that grows stronger every day in the battle against this worldwide pandemic. in san francisco, hank plante, cbs 5. >> and we invite you to watch hank plante's series, aids at 30, it's a half-hour special we produced in cooperation with the san francisco aids foundation. it airs saturda