* Kiyoshi Kuromiya; Philadelphia AIDS Activist

Kiyoshi Kuromiya, 57, an AIDS activist who led a movement in Philadelphia and worldwide to empower patients with information about the disease. Diagnosed with AIDS in 1988, Kuromiya soon wanted to know everything about his illness. He became a self-taught AIDS expert who believed that patients fare best when they understand their disease, explore treatment options and actively participate in medical decisions. Kuromiya ran a community medicine chest to help patients get free drugs, published a newsletter called Critical Path and ran a 24-hour hotline for patients needing information. He also provided information over the Internet through his Web site, critpath.org. Born at the Japanese internment camp of Heart Mountain, Wyo., during World War II, Kuromiya grew up in Southern California, and moved to the Philadelphia area in the early 1960s to study architecture. In the 1970s, he met the late visionary architect R. Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the geodesic dome, and eventually became Fuller’s assistant and book collaborator. A founding member of the activist group ACT-UP, Kuromiya died May 11 in Philadelphia of complications from AIDS.