For the first time ever, a person living with HIV has donated a kidney to a transplant recipient also living with HIV.

The living donor HIV-to-HIV kidney transplant was completed earlier this week by a multidisciplinary team from Johns Hopkins Medicine, and doctors said that the procedure was a huge success.

“This is the first time someone living with HIV has been allowed to donate a kidney, ever, in the world, and that’s huge,” said Dorry Segev, professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “A disease that was a death sentence in the 1980s has become one so well-controlled that those living with HIV can now save lives with kidney donation—that’s incredible.”

Up until this point, people living with HIV have not been able to be kidney donors because it was thought that HIV was too much of a risk factor for kidney disease in the donor. However, Segev and his coworkers conducted research on 40,000 people living with HIV and found that the new antiretroviral drugs are safe for the kidney. They also found that those with well-controlled HIV have basically the same risks as those without HIV and are healthy enough to donate kidneys.

“What’s meaningful about the first living kidney donor—who is also living with HIV—is that this advances medicine while defeating stigma, too. It challenges providers and the public to see HIV differently,” explained Christine Durand, associate professor of medicine and oncology at the university. “As patients waiting for a transplant see that we’re working with as many donors as possible to save as many lives as possible, we’re giving them hope. Every successful transplant shortens the waitlist for all patients, no matter their HIV status.”

The kidney donor in this case has been identified as 35 year-old Nina Martinez, who unknowingly contracted the virus as a result of a blood transfusion she received as an infant. Nina and her family did not learn that she was HIV-positive until she was 8 years-old. These days, after receiving anti-viral treatments, Nina lives a healthy life as a public health consultant, marathon runner, clinical research volunteer, and policy advocate dedicated to eliminating the stigma still surrounding HIV.

“Don’t call me a hero, call me the first,” Nina said. “I want to see who comes next.”

Nina was inspired to become a kidney donor after seeing an episode of “Grey’s Anatomy” that featured the first living kidney donor with HIV.

“I was also inspired by a friend and neighbor who herself became a living kidney donor,” she said. “Participating in clinical research is, for me, extremely important. I bore witness to my friend providing a lifesaving transplant, and in watching her I knew that if there was a way for me to help someone else, I had to do it. Doing so under a research protocol was very comfortable for me.”

“Some people believe that people living with HIV are ‘sick,’ or look unwell,” Martinez added. “For me, I knew I was in good health. HIV was no longer a legal barrier to organ donation, and I never considered HIV to be a medical barrier either. As a policy advocate, I want people to change what they believe they know about HIV. I don’t want to be anyone’s hero. I want to be someone’s example, someone’s reason to consider donating.”

Last summer, Nina learned on Facebook that a friend of hers needed a kidney, and she started going through the process of trying to become a donor. Sadly, before she could get approved, her friend passed away. Afterwards, Nina decided that she still wanted to become a kidney donor to help someone else.

“Despite losing my friend to kidney disease, I wanted to move forward with donation as a way to honor them,” she said. “I could do this for someone else, not because I’m special but because I’m strong. Other people living with HIV before me participated in clinical research so that I could not just survive but thrive. It was my turn to do this, for both my friend that I cared about and all people waiting on a transplant.”

Now, Nina is hoping to inspire others with her story.

“Society perceives me, and people like me, as people who bring death,” Nina said before the operation. “And I can’t figure out any better way to show that people like me can bring life.”

Find out more about this incredible story in the video below.