London, Mar 6 (Agencies): A London man infected with HIV may become the second person in the world to beat the virus that causes AIDS, researchers reported on Tuesday, a finding advancing the costly and challenging search for a cure.

The research team was co-led by Indian origin Dr Ravindra Gupta, who is a professor and HIV biologist.

Professor Ravindra Gupta is a virologist at University College London.

Dr Gupta has two teams under him working for the cure of HIV in London and in South Africa, at the Africa Health Research Institute.

Gupta's research career is focused on the emergence of global HIV drug resistance. Having completed his specialist medical training in infectious diseases and a Masters in International Public Health, he now works on clinical/epidemiological aspects of drug resistance as well as in vitro investigation of susceptibility to protease inhibitors, a major class of drugs now being widely used to tackle first-line treatment failure globally.

“There is no virus there that we can measure. We can’t detect anything,” Ravindra Gupta, the doctor who co-lead the man’s treatment team, told Reuters.

Gupta said the London patient was 'functionally cured' and is in remission, but said it was too early to officially say he is cured.

In 2007, Timothy Ray Brown became the first person to be cured of HIV after receiving a bone marrow stem cell transplant, to treat leukemia, from someone who was naturally immune to the virus.

AIDS virus currently affects some 37 million people globally.