Posted by
samzenpus
on from the super-soldier dept.
Trokair writes "China Daily reports that researcher Tuofu Zhu has discovered two women in an HIV Research program that are immune to the disorder via a mutant gene."
If they were male
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 5, Funny
That would be a great pick up line. "Hey baby, want your kids to be immune?"
Re:Spontaneous mutation?
by
allism
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· Score: 5, Interesting
About ten years ago, I did volunteer work for an HIV-testing clinic. I met two men while I was there who were convinced that they were both HIV-immune. One had been very sexually active during the late 70s and early 80s and had had most of his friends and sexual partners die of AIDS-related causes, and the other had repeatedly had sex with multiple HIV-positive partners out of survivors guilt. Talk was just beginning around then of people who seemed to be immune to HIV.
It's not something I'd especially want to gamble on, though - HIV mutates nearly every time it infects, and at some point I think these people who are now immune won't be immune any longer.
Re:Lucky ladies!
by
Mr.Sharpy
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Now they can mess around all they want, au natural, and not worry about dying!
Indeed! Now all they have to worry about is... Gohnorrea Herpes Chlamydia Syphillis Ge nital Warts HPV Hepatitus Trichomoniasis and more! Lucky bitches...
I think that the existance of this mutation has been known for some time. The key is that it was only thought to exist in the caucasian population until now.
-- Only in a Slashdot fantasy can a Slackware install turn into several hours of sex . . . . .
Re:Lucky ladies!
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Unfortunately, there's still this particular virus called "pregnancy" that continues to cause abrupt stoppage of sex when performed au natural.
Re:Lucky ladies!
by
lucabrasi999
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· Score: 5, Informative
there's still this particular virus called "pregnancy" that continues to cause abrupt stoppage of sex when performed au natural.
Trust me, that abrupt "stoppage" usually lasts much, much longer than nine months...
immunity? someone should research slashdot
by
taxman_10m
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· Score: 5, Funny
Lots of people immune from STDs here.
1 More Reason to Find Swedish Women Hot
by
craXORjack
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I swear I saw a documentary on PBS about how a tiny percentage of mostly european descendants are immune and it was because of the Black Death (or Bubonic plague, I'm not sure that those are the same thing.) But googling for answers lead me to
this article which says that 10-15 percent of northern europeans have limited immunity due to inheriting 1 resistant gene and 1% inherited the gene from both parents giving them full immunity. And Swedes have the highest percentage. Also it says the Plague is debunked and suggests the everpresent Smallpox as the culprit.
-- Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
The main story and your post put me in mind of a particular episode of "Secrets of the Dead" that I saw, exploring the plague and its survivors.
I wonder if either of those fellows could have been carriers of the delta 32 gene, a mutated form of the gene CCR5:
"In 1996, research showed that delta 32 prevents HIV from entering human cells and infecting the body"
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_plague/
I didn't see in the article anywhere where it mentioned which gene was affected in the Chinese women, but it seems like to be a different one, based on the information presented in the "Secrets" show:
"O'Brien assembled an international team of scientists to test for the presence of delta 32 around the world. "Native Africans did not have delta 32 at all," O'Brien says, "and when we looked at East Asians and Indians, they were also flat zero." In fact, the levels of delta 32 found in Eyam were only matched in regions of Europe that had been affected by the plague and in America, which was, for the most part, settled by European plague survivors and their descendents."
It was a really good show and if you get the opportunity to watch it, I highly recommend that you do.
-- soupy twist
seen this immunity before...
by
ezonme
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· Score: 5, Informative
... in a different way. Check these "news" from July 2, 1998:
Geneva - Researchers have uncovered unusual behaviors of human immune systems that seem to have protected certain babies in Canada, prostitutes in Thailand and Africa, and gay men in San Francisco from HIV, despite exposure to the AIDS virus.
The protections do not appear to be genetic, and may offer some critical clues to those hoping to make a vaccine against HIV.
At Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Dr. Kelly MacDonald and a team of pediatricians noticed something odd earlier this year: HIV-positive mothers did not pass the virus to babies who were born with immunologically incompatible blood. In cases of incompatibility, the mother has one genetic type of immune system markers, and the baby a different set. This can put the baby at risk of being attacked by the mother's immune system.
But, in the case of HIV-infected mothers, this immunological incompatibility saved the babies from HIV, MacDonald reported yesterday. The finding was based on a study of 111 mother / child pairs.
MacDonald believes that a key factor in the babies' genetic makeup - called A2/A6802 supertype - by fortunate coincidence prevents HIV from infecting the child. When the mother and child share the same genetic makeup in their immune system, MacDonald discovered, the child is 2.63 times more likely to get infected with HIV.
Since approximately 40 percent of the population worldwide has the A2/A6802 supertype, it makes it an attractive target for vaccine design, MacDonald said.
The U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied 280 prostitutes in Thailand who had worked in brothels for three years or more, and a group of non-prostitute Thai women. Not surprisingly, the prostitutes were far more likely to be infected with the virus, and 47 percent were HIV-positive, the CDC reported yesterday.
Remarkably, however, nine of the prostitutes were negative for HIV, even though they had genital herpes and syphilis - clear indications of unsafe sexual behavior. The women did not have any of the genetic mutations that have been shown to protect some Caucasians from HIV. But they did apparently have complete immunity. Cells of their immune systems were killing every HIV to which they were exposed, the CDC team discovered. And laboratory studies revealed that their CD8 T-cells, a type of white blood cell, were secreting a factor which, when mixed in a petri dish with human cells and HIV, stimulated immune cells to destroy the virus.
Dr. Jay Levy of the University of California in San Francisco has presented evidence of a CD8-produced factor that stops HIV, as well. For years he has tried to isolate the mysterious substance, to no avail. But it could result, he said in a speech, in a way to maintain control of the virus without the need for antiviral drugs.
Sharon Stranford, a researcher in Levy's laboratory, examined the immune system cells of gay San Francisco men who have been exposed repeatedly to HIV and never become infected. She said that the CD8 cells in these men make a mysterious factor that protects against HIV. But it is not the same as the one discovered in Thai prostitutes, Stranford said, because it blocks HIV without prompting immune system cells to kill the virus. It works by blocking the ability of HIV to make copies of itself, Levy said.
Finally, a CDC team working in Abijan, Ivory Coast, has also found a group of uninfected prostitutes. They, too, lack any genetic protection. And their ability to fight off HIV is also immunological. The team hasn't yet worked out the details, researchers said, but it is clear that immune system cells in the African prostitutes are highly activated, as if constantly ready to go to war.
First, it's been know for ages, so it's not a new mutation.
The specific 'mutation' involve CCR5, a coreceptor of HIV-1. An uncommun deletion called CCR5delta32 make it so that M-tropic HIV-1 can't enter CCR5+ cells in homozygote individuals (2 copies of the mutant gene). Heterozygotes (having a functional CCR5 and a mutated one) show less resistance to infection (70% resistance, estimated).
HIV-1 can exhibit a tropism (T-tropic) for another coreceptor, CXCR4, for which no mutation is known, so total immunity isn't exact; we can talk about resistance at best. M-tropic viruses are associated with de novo infection, and a switch to T-tropism is thought to be a turning point in the degeneration to AIDS (but not always).
Even CCR5delta32 individuals can be infected (althought have far less risk than you and me). Even then, the infection progress far more slowly than in normal individuals... they're called long term non-progressors. Won't develop AIDS in their lifetime, but still infectious, which can be dangerous...
I think it would be totally awesome if some kind of imaginary god did try and punish it's creation through the use of a cruel, life destroying virus - only to have his divine will deflected by something so simple as a tiny thicknesses of latex, education, testing and screening, as well as the hard work of doctors and scientists around the globe.
Would me wonder who should be quaking in fear from who.
In my experience, a related condition, "marriage", seems to have a similar effect in reducing the frequency of sexual activity. So much so, in fact, that I begin to believe that those who oppose homosexual activity would be well served to endorse gay marriage as a preventative measure.
In Zhu's opinion, if medicine functioning similarly with the genes was put in the vagina and rectum, the HIV virus couldn't find its carrier to enter the human body and thus would be expelled.
Does this make sense to anyone? Granted, these are the reporter's words, not the doctor's words... but that just doesn't sound logical to me. The virus is there, in contact with this "medicine" and your own cells. Because of the medicine's structure, the virus can't affect it, but how does that help your own cells, which do NOT have that protection?
Frankly, the simple (but often unused/misused) "condom" solution seems easier in this example then the medicine he's talking about.
Much of the AIDS epidemic in Africa is directly caused by people misunderstanding how the virus is transmitted and treated (no, sex with virgins or babies won't help you), due in some cases to the sheer stupidity of certain leaders ("HIV does NOT cause AIDS"), poor education programs, and the equally stupid refusal of certain other religious-minded leaders who refuse to support programs that advocate anything other than celibacy to prevent STDs. Madness.
I hope that at a minimum, China is putting some serious resources into educating their population about how HIV/AIDS works, and how to avoid getting it. Obviously that's not the end of the battle, but it's the basic starting point.
Re:It seems unlikely.
by
cyclop
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· Score: 5, Informative
Hmmm...Is the parent a nice molecular-biology troll or just a gem of ignorance mixed with self-confidence?
"Because there's very little in the virus that is guaranteed to be common to ALL instances of said virus, it is hard to see how immunity could exist, even in theory."
The resistance mutation depends from the absence of a particular chemokine receptor on human white blood cells. In principle, the HIV virus could use another receptor to enter. In practice it's quite improbable the virus can mutate his whole capsid proteins to get advantage of a totally new receptor.
"Then, you have other problems. HIV is detected in a number of ways, but probably the most common way is to detect the antibodies to the virus. This causes an obvious problem. If your immune system is damaged, in some way, it may not be able to detect the virus and/or produce antibodies to it. Either way, any technique for detecting HIV through the antibodies would fail."
You obviously have no grasp of immunology. HIV infects primarily subsets of T cells. They are not B cells, that produce soluble antibodies. B cells are not attacked by HIV,therefore you argument is bullshit.
(In fact, B cells are indirectly affected by HIV, but only in late stages of AIDS disease.)
"So much so that they could fight the disease and not even need to generate antibodies to do so."
You have no grasp of immunology,it's obvious now. Your body doesn't "feel the need" for antibodies.It just produces them when encounters an antigen. In fact, you probably already have cells with anti-HIV antibodies: they're just very,very few and are not activated.(Wanna know why? RTFM, i.e. a molecular immunology textbook)
"In theory, since we don't actually know in practice."
We know. Check other/. comments and what I wrote before.
"Provided the self-destruct triggers faster than the virus can spread"
It seems you know nothing about virology and apoptosis too...
"...you're probably not going to live very long anyway, and your quality of life isn't going to be noticably better than those with the disease. In fact, it would probably be a whole lot worse.
But, hey, if that's what these two women want for their life, that's their problem.
"
If these women were immunodeficient, physicians should have noticed it immediately. Such a severe immunodeficience is, like you seem to understand, practically incompatible with life.
-- --
Patent no.123456: A way to personalize/. comments with a sig attached to the end.
Re:It seems unlikely.
by
Chucklz
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· Score: 5, Informative
Umm no.
Grab an Immunology text and get busy.
HIV begins by infecting CCR5+ CXCR4+ CD4+ T cells. B cells are the cells that produce antibodies, not T cells. Early in infection T-h cells are capable of activating B cells, with a corresponding increase of cytokine production (partially responsible for the early "flu" symptoms associated with infection). Early in infection there is a sharp increase in circulating IgG and IgA, so an ELISA/Western blot test for circulating antibodies is certainly justified.
How would a body fight HIV. Well even late infection, CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes are still present, albeit in an impaired state due to an impaired generative ability. So, your body can still kill HIV infected cells. This does not even take into account the role of the complement pathway, which will be active at least through mid stage infection, and late stage in some patients.
The immune system collapse is due to a loss of Th cells, which are required to modulate the B cell response, and of course Th cytokines are absolutely essential for the functioning of the rest of the immune system. Without these cells, the immune system doesn't do much, let alone fight itself. Where are all the deaths from anaphylaxis, and other hyper immune responses?
The way that people are immune to HIV involves HIV entry into Th cells. Individuals with either a modified CCR5 or CXCR4 surface molecule do not support normal HIV entry into T cells. So, no entry, no infection. For your apoptosis suggestion, first learn exactly what apoptosis involves, and how viral replication works. If a cell goes apoptotic with even a few assembled viruses in its cytosol, they will spread.
You must have a pathetically weak knowledge of the iummune system (or none at all).
I assume by this you're referring to the federal government's "ban" on certain types of research, such as stem cell reasearch... only there is no such ban. You can do all the research with any type of stem cells you want (including those from aborted fetuses) and not break a single law... you just can't do it using money from the federal government.
While whether or not such research should have access to federal funds is debatable (and I'd probably agree that the current regulations are too restrictive), it's a far cry from actually banning such research.
One useful statistic that I've never come across is the relative ammounts of research funding spent in the U.S. by private vs. public/government sources.
Come to Asia and taste it, buddy !
by
Taco+Cowboy
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· Score: 5, Informative
You sez:
"culturally Asians seem to be a lot less
promiscuous, which would imply that this
disaster doesn't seem so imminent"
This is so only to show others.
Asian culture is at its best in the sex scene.
On one hand, they will pretend that they are not sexually promiscuous, and on the other hand, the vast majority of Child Prostitution in the world happen throughout Asian countries. You can find child prostitutes in Indonesia, China, India, Kampuchia (formerly known as Cambodia), Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Hong Kong, The Philippines, Malaysia and so on.
If you are willing to pay, you can even participate in the "deflowering" act, where you'd get a virgin child - male or female - for his / her first night.
What you do to them, as long as you don't kill them, is entirely up to you.
I know! Things the average Slashdotter won't ever have to worry about.
ding ding ding
-- Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
Re:Someone call...
by
identity0
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· Score: 5, Funny
Great, two hot Chinese women whose 'superpowers' are that they can fuck anyone and inject any needle without being harmed. I guess it was about time X-Men went hentai and became XXX-Men.
I'm imagining them in the leather bodysuits from the movies, but crotchless and with a opening at the elbows for shooting up. Their arch-nemesis shall be Donkey Boy and Heroin Girl.
Oh god, what kind of pathetic geek am I? I just turned an important piece of AIDS research that could help millions into a bad porno comic joke... I will log off before I embarrass myself further.
If you need me, I will be in my bedroom, masturbating...
Re:Tell me it ain't so !
by
tarunthegreat2
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· Score: 5, Insightful
You need to correct that even further. A greater NUMBER of people will die in the third-world, but even there, AIDS deaths are a very small PROPORTION of total deaths. People in the third-world are still dying from the "basics" - Hunger, Poverty, Diaorrhea, Cholera, TB, Malaria, e.t.c. Civilisation will end when we acknowledge George Bush as our Anointed God-On-Earth and (Shudder, Shiver) start pasting "What would W do?" on our car bumpers.
Patents are the real key
by
fsterman
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· Score: 5, Interesting
The key is the fact the Gene patens have blocked research into it. Every time a lab does something with the caucasian mutation this lab send out a cease and desist. They guy who they found it on originally is opposed to it, but he has no say, even if it is his body. Another thing software and genes have in common, neither should have patents.
-- Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
Re:Tell me it ain't so !
by
mrchaotica
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· Score: 5, Insightful
I've heard figures that around 1/3 of the total population of some African countries are HIV positive. Granted, a bunch will get picked off by something else before AIDS has a chance to get them, but it's still a significant proportion. Besides, most AIDS-related deaths aren't due to the virus itself, but rather it weakening your immune system enough for something else to get you.
--
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Re:Tell me it ain't so !
by
tarunthegreat2
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· Score: 5, Insightful
You've picked a few African countries, and you're most likely correct about them. But I've used the blanket term Third-World - in response to the post above mine), which includes India and China (that's a minimum of 2 Billion people. AIDS prevalence in this entire group is much, much less than 1%). But starvation/malnutrition, and the other diseases I've mentioned are at least 10%. I think the priorties there are clear. Most western agencies, when talking about India and China always mention figures, but they neve talk about percentages. In India, according to official figures there are meant to 0.5 million people suffering from AIDs, and think it's double that in China, of course, these official figures are usually crap... however, let's assume they're double that number, that still is nothing compared to the number of people dying from other diseases/afflictions.
Re:Immune
by
BuD-TheDude
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· Score: 5, Informative
Very true, but keep in mind that this was not true immunity.
The original ~10 prostitutes found immune were then taken away from their constant exposure to HIV and some were put on antiretrovirlas. It was only after this removal that they began to progress to AIDS. There are several ways in which our body can outmaneuver HIV. This adaptive immune response is remarkable though I feel that the protein APOBEC3G is also worth mentioning.
APOBEC3G is an intracellular antiretoviral protein that "interferes with the replication of HIV by incorporating itself into virus particles and damaging the genetic material of the virus. The viral protein Vif can halt this process in two ways". Vif is one of atleast 15 proteins found in HIV's 9 definitive genes. For an interesting read:
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/1/1/28
Here is a theory why. The CCR5-Delta32 mutation has the highest concentration in Ashkenazi Jews and Nordic people, and developed a high concentration in Caucasians because it provided resistance to the black plague.
Re:Genetics at work?
by
grcumb
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· Score: 5, Insightful
HIV/AIDS caused by changing sexual mores? Puh-leese.
Perhaps you could explain how this observation works with the fact that the most virulent New World disease (Syphilis) managed to spread like wildfire from Catholic Spain at the height of the Inquisition, throughout European society. And while you're at it, perhaps you could explain how it was still a significant and common disease at the height of the Victorian period.
Maybe I'll save you the effort. Both Syphilis and HIV/AIDS were enabled by revolutions in *Human Mobility*, not changes in morality. The syphilis epidemic erupted at the same time that commerce via ship hit a spike, and HIV/AIDS hit us when air travel spiked.
It's no surprise that 'Patient Zero' in the US HIV/AIDS outbreak was an airline steward. It *is* a coincidence that he happened to be gay.
-- Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
Re:Tell me it ain't so !
by
Danny+Rathjens
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Third-World [...], which includes India and China
I think it is time to officially retire the term "third world" since hardly anyone has a clue what it means and keeps making up their own definitions. I have to admit that including a communist country with nuclear weapons is the most imaginitive inclusion in the "third world" I've yet to see. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_world
Isn't it ironic?
Re:Tell me it ain't so !
by
extensis
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· Score: 5, Informative
HIV is the virus, AIDS is the symptoms.
No you can never directly die from HIV, HIV only infects CD4 positive cells; ie, T-Helper Cells. Unfortunatly T-Helper Cells are nessecary for an active responsive immune system, without it, you quickly succumb to a multitude of usually harmless diseases that can kill, eg herpes...
some countries in africa the possibility of contracting HIV during your lifetime is now nearly 100% for teenagers.
-- Mike Jones-{ Genetic Engineer, in Training }-
Not totally new
by
pk2000
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· Score: 5, Informative
AIDS resistance has also been found in family trees that survived Black Death some 600 years ago.
Re:Genetics at work?
by
Afty0r
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· Score: 5, Funny
It's no surprise that 'Patient Zero' in the US HIV/AIDS outbreak was an airline steward. It *is* a coincidence that he happened to be gay.
Wait a second... a male airline steward is gay, and that's supposed to be a coincidence?:)
Re:Immune
by
Thomas+Miconi
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Not being a racist troll here, but from my experience, culturally Asians seem to be a lot less promiscuous,
But you're talking about an exponential process. If everybody has unprotected sex with n persons while being infected, as soon as n > 1, the actual value of n matters very little: the disease will spread with catastrophic speed. It might take more time to infect the whole population, but not that much.
As an example, if in one case the process spreads with multiplicative factor n1 = 2, and in the other n2 = 8, then it will only take 3 times as long for the first process to infect as many people. If n1 = 2 and n2 = 16, it will be 4 times as long.
The ratio between total infection times is equal to the ratio of the logs of the two multiplicative factors. You can check by yourself, it's just basic logarithm / exponent manipulation.
Of course in this simplistic analysis we ignore repetitions (people already infected do not contribute to any further increase in infections). But these effects become significant only when a sizeable proportion of the population is infected, so essentially if one population is small and the other is large, the disease will spread faster, for a longer time, in the second one.
Oh, btw, remember that in the case of India and China put together, we are talking about one third of mankind.
But there is an even more depressing aspect of AIDS. With AIDS, abstinence is only a protection if it is absolute. There are some populations in which such a thing exists. Most of the time it is enforced by scaringly oppressive traditions / religions / customs. In other words, when AIDS becomes widespread enough to have a significant impact on the population, it turns obscurantism into a Darwinian advantage.
Thomas-
Re:Tell me it ain't so !
by
geekpolitico
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· Score: 5, Insightful
It is easy to say that education will solve the problem, but that doesn't even work in the US. Many people know of the dangers of AIDS and yet still have unprotected sex. It is stupid, but they do it. And this is in a country with relatively high ability to pass the protection/abstinence memes.
In Africa there are massive cultural and practical barriers in place. It is much much harder to transmit this information widely, and there are strong cultural biases against abstinence/protection. The most sickening cultural belief is that having sex with a virgin cures you of AIDS. This is especially bad because between the long standing beliefs and the fact that people are sexually active younger there, the only virgins are very young children or babies. It's fairly horrifying.
It will take a lot of time, effort and money to bring the AIDS crisis under control in Africa. President Bush was wise (for once) to commit billions to fighting the problem there. He was also wise to recommend that the program have an abstinence element to it. The Uganda program that contained an abstinence element was unusually successful in fighting AIDS in that country. I only wish he had lived up to his commitment by actually funding it at the level he promised.
My parents spent the last 3 years living in Lesotho (the country inside of S. Africa), so they've spent a lot of time discussing this with the local Peace Corps volunteers. It is fairly discouraging, but very important that we do something about it.
Slashdot Mirror
That would be a great pick up line. "Hey baby, want your kids to be immune?"
About ten years ago, I did volunteer work for an HIV-testing clinic. I met two men while I was there who were convinced that they were both HIV-immune. One had been very sexually active during the late 70s and early 80s and had had most of his friends and sexual partners die of AIDS-related causes, and the other had repeatedly had sex with multiple HIV-positive partners out of survivors guilt. Talk was just beginning around then of people who seemed to be immune to HIV.
It's not something I'd especially want to gamble on, though - HIV mutates nearly every time it infects, and at some point I think these people who are now immune won't be immune any longer.
Denver Isuzu Suzuki
Now they can mess around all they want, au natural, and not worry about dying!
e nital Warts
Indeed! Now all they have to worry about is...
Gohnorrea
Herpes
Chlamydia
Syphillis
G
HPV
Hepatitus
Trichomoniasis
and more! Lucky bitches...
I think that the existance of this mutation has been known for some time. The key is that it was only thought to exist in the caucasian population until now.
Only in a Slashdot fantasy can a Slackware install turn into several hours of sex . . . . .
Unfortunately, there's still this particular virus called "pregnancy" that continues to cause abrupt stoppage of sex when performed au natural.
Trust me, that abrupt "stoppage" usually lasts much, much longer than nine months...
Lots of people immune from STDs here.
I swear I saw a documentary on PBS about how a tiny percentage of mostly european descendants are immune and it was because of the Black Death (or Bubonic plague, I'm not sure that those are the same thing.) But googling for answers lead me to this article which says that 10-15 percent of northern europeans have limited immunity due to inheriting 1 resistant gene and 1% inherited the gene from both parents giving them full immunity. And Swedes have the highest percentage. Also it says the Plague is debunked and suggests the everpresent Smallpox as the culprit.
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
The main story and your post put me in mind of a particular episode of "Secrets of the Dead" that I saw, exploring the plague and its survivors.
I wonder if either of those fellows could have been carriers of the delta 32 gene, a mutated form of the gene CCR5:
"In 1996, research showed that delta 32 prevents HIV from entering human cells and infecting the body"
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_plague/
I didn't see in the article anywhere where it mentioned which gene was affected in the Chinese women, but it seems like to be a different one, based on the information presented in the "Secrets" show:
"O'Brien assembled an international team of scientists to test for the presence of delta 32 around the world. "Native Africans did not have delta 32 at all," O'Brien says, "and when we looked at East Asians and Indians, they were also flat zero." In fact, the levels of delta 32 found in Eyam were only matched in regions of Europe that had been affected by the plague and in America, which was, for the most part, settled by European plague survivors and their descendents."
It was a really good show and if you get the opportunity to watch it, I highly recommend that you do.
soupy twist
Geneva - Researchers have uncovered unusual behaviors of human immune systems that seem to have protected certain babies in Canada, prostitutes in Thailand and Africa, and gay men in San Francisco from HIV, despite exposure to the AIDS virus.
The protections do not appear to be genetic, and may offer some critical clues to those hoping to make a vaccine against HIV.
At Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Dr. Kelly MacDonald and a team of pediatricians noticed something odd earlier this year: HIV-positive mothers did not pass the virus to babies who were born with immunologically incompatible blood. In cases of incompatibility, the mother has one genetic type of immune system markers, and the baby a different set. This can put the baby at risk of being attacked by the mother's immune system.
But, in the case of HIV-infected mothers, this immunological incompatibility saved the babies from HIV, MacDonald reported yesterday. The finding was based on a study of 111 mother / child pairs.
MacDonald believes that a key factor in the babies' genetic makeup - called A2/A6802 supertype - by fortunate coincidence prevents HIV from infecting the child. When the mother and child share the same genetic makeup in their immune system, MacDonald discovered, the child is 2.63 times more likely to get infected with HIV.
Since approximately 40 percent of the population worldwide has the A2/A6802 supertype, it makes it an attractive target for vaccine design, MacDonald said.
The U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied 280 prostitutes in Thailand who had worked in brothels for three years or more, and a group of non-prostitute Thai women. Not surprisingly, the prostitutes were far more likely to be infected with the virus, and 47 percent were HIV-positive, the CDC reported yesterday.
Remarkably, however, nine of the prostitutes were negative for HIV, even though they had genital herpes and syphilis - clear indications of unsafe sexual behavior. The women did not have any of the genetic mutations that have been shown to protect some Caucasians from HIV. But they did apparently have complete immunity. Cells of their immune systems were killing every HIV to which they were exposed, the CDC team discovered. And laboratory studies revealed that their CD8 T-cells, a type of white blood cell, were secreting a factor which, when mixed in a petri dish with human cells and HIV, stimulated immune cells to destroy the virus.
Dr. Jay Levy of the University of California in San Francisco has presented evidence of a CD8-produced factor that stops HIV, as well. For years he has tried to isolate the mysterious substance, to no avail. But it could result, he said in a speech, in a way to maintain control of the virus without the need for antiviral drugs.
Sharon Stranford, a researcher in Levy's laboratory, examined the immune system cells of gay San Francisco men who have been exposed repeatedly to HIV and never become infected. She said that the CD8 cells in these men make a mysterious factor that protects against HIV. But it is not the same as the one discovered in Thai prostitutes, Stranford said, because it blocks HIV without prompting immune system cells to kill the virus. It works by blocking the ability of HIV to make copies of itself, Levy said.
Finally, a CDC team working in Abijan, Ivory Coast, has also found a group of uninfected prostitutes. They, too, lack any genetic protection. And their ability to fight off HIV is also immunological. The team hasn't yet worked out the details, researchers said, but it is clear that immune system cells in the African prostitutes are highly activated, as if constantly ready to go to war.
First, it's been know for ages, so it's not a new mutation.
The specific 'mutation' involve CCR5, a coreceptor of HIV-1. An uncommun deletion called CCR5delta32 make it so that M-tropic HIV-1 can't enter CCR5+ cells in homozygote individuals (2 copies of the mutant gene). Heterozygotes (having a functional CCR5 and a mutated one) show less resistance to infection (70% resistance, estimated).
HIV-1 can exhibit a tropism (T-tropic) for another coreceptor, CXCR4, for which no mutation is known, so total immunity isn't exact; we can talk about resistance at best. M-tropic viruses are associated with de novo infection, and a switch to T-tropism is thought to be a turning point in the degeneration to AIDS (but not always).
Even CCR5delta32 individuals can be infected (althought have far less risk than you and me). Even then, the infection progress far more slowly than in normal individuals... they're called long term non-progressors. Won't develop AIDS in their lifetime, but still infectious, which can be dangerous...
Eureka Science News - automatically updated
I think it would be totally awesome if some kind of imaginary god did try and punish it's creation through the use of a cruel, life destroying virus - only to have his divine will deflected by something so simple as a tiny thicknesses of latex, education, testing and screening, as well as the hard work of doctors and scientists around the globe.
Would me wonder who should be quaking in fear from who.
One god, one market, one truth, one consumer.
In my experience, a related condition, "marriage", seems to have a similar effect in reducing the frequency of sexual activity. So much so, in fact, that I begin to believe that those who oppose homosexual activity would be well served to endorse gay marriage as a preventative measure.
From the article:
In Zhu's opinion, if medicine functioning similarly with the genes was put in the vagina and rectum, the HIV virus couldn't find its carrier to enter the human body and thus would be expelled.
Does this make sense to anyone? Granted, these are the reporter's words, not the doctor's words... but that just doesn't sound logical to me. The virus is there, in contact with this "medicine" and your own cells. Because of the medicine's structure, the virus can't affect it, but how does that help your own cells, which do NOT have that protection?
Frankly, the simple (but often unused/misused) "condom" solution seems easier in this example then the medicine he's talking about.
Much of the AIDS epidemic in Africa is directly caused by people misunderstanding how the virus is transmitted and treated (no, sex with virgins or babies won't help you), due in some cases to the sheer stupidity of certain leaders ("HIV does NOT cause AIDS"), poor education programs, and the equally stupid refusal of certain other religious-minded leaders who refuse to support programs that advocate anything other than celibacy to prevent STDs. Madness.
I hope that at a minimum, China is putting some serious resources into educating their population about how HIV/AIDS works, and how to avoid getting it. Obviously that's not the end of the battle, but it's the basic starting point.
Hmmm...Is the parent a nice molecular-biology troll or just a gem of ignorance mixed with self-confidence?
"Because there's very little in the virus that is guaranteed to be common to ALL instances of said virus, it is hard to see how immunity could exist, even in theory."
The resistance mutation depends from the absence of a particular chemokine receptor on human white blood cells. In principle, the HIV virus could use another receptor to enter. In practice it's quite improbable the virus can mutate his whole capsid proteins to get advantage of a totally new receptor.
"Then, you have other problems. HIV is detected in a number of ways, but probably the most common way is to detect the antibodies to the virus. This causes an obvious problem. If your immune system is damaged, in some way, it may not be able to detect the virus and/or produce antibodies to it. Either way, any technique for detecting HIV through the antibodies would fail."
You obviously have no grasp of immunology. HIV infects primarily subsets of T cells. They are not B cells, that produce soluble antibodies. B cells are not attacked by HIV,therefore you argument is bullshit.
(In fact, B cells are indirectly affected by HIV, but only in late stages of AIDS disease.)
"So much so that they could fight the disease and not even need to generate antibodies to do so."
You have no grasp of immunology,it's obvious now. Your body doesn't "feel the need" for antibodies.It just produces them when encounters an antigen. In fact, you probably already have cells with anti-HIV antibodies: they're just very,very few and are not activated.(Wanna know why? RTFM, i.e. a molecular immunology textbook)
"In theory, since we don't actually know in practice."
We know. Check other /. comments and what I wrote before.
"Provided the self-destruct triggers faster than the virus can spread"
It seems you know nothing about virology and apoptosis too...
"...you're probably not going to live very long anyway, and your quality of life isn't going to be noticably better than those with the disease. In fact, it would probably be a whole lot worse. But, hey, if that's what these two women want for their life, that's their problem. "
If these women were immunodeficient, physicians should have noticed it immediately. Such a severe immunodeficience is, like you seem to understand, practically incompatible with life.
-- Patent no.123456: A way to personalize
Umm no. Grab an Immunology text and get busy. HIV begins by infecting CCR5+ CXCR4+ CD4+ T cells. B cells are the cells that produce antibodies, not T cells. Early in infection T-h cells are capable of activating B cells, with a corresponding increase of cytokine production (partially responsible for the early "flu" symptoms associated with infection). Early in infection there is a sharp increase in circulating IgG and IgA, so an ELISA/Western blot test for circulating antibodies is certainly justified. How would a body fight HIV. Well even late infection, CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes are still present, albeit in an impaired state due to an impaired generative ability. So, your body can still kill HIV infected cells. This does not even take into account the role of the complement pathway, which will be active at least through mid stage infection, and late stage in some patients. The immune system collapse is due to a loss of Th cells, which are required to modulate the B cell response, and of course Th cytokines are absolutely essential for the functioning of the rest of the immune system. Without these cells, the immune system doesn't do much, let alone fight itself. Where are all the deaths from anaphylaxis, and other hyper immune responses? The way that people are immune to HIV involves HIV entry into Th cells. Individuals with either a modified CCR5 or CXCR4 surface molecule do not support normal HIV entry into T cells. So, no entry, no infection. For your apoptosis suggestion, first learn exactly what apoptosis involves, and how viral replication works. If a cell goes apoptotic with even a few assembled viruses in its cytosol, they will spread. You must have a pathetically weak knowledge of the iummune system (or none at all).
I assume by this you're referring to the federal government's "ban" on certain types of research, such as stem cell reasearch... only there is no such ban. You can do all the research with any type of stem cells you want (including those from aborted fetuses) and not break a single law... you just can't do it using money from the federal government.
While whether or not such research should have access to federal funds is debatable (and I'd probably agree that the current regulations are too restrictive), it's a far cry from actually banning such research.
One useful statistic that I've never come across is the relative ammounts of research funding spent in the U.S. by private vs. public/government sources.
You sez:
"culturally Asians seem to be a lot less
promiscuous, which would imply that this
disaster doesn't seem so imminent"
This is so only to show others.
Asian culture is at its best in the sex scene.
On one hand, they will pretend that they are not sexually promiscuous, and on the other hand, the vast majority of Child Prostitution in the world happen throughout Asian countries. You can find child prostitutes in Indonesia, China, India, Kampuchia (formerly known as Cambodia), Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Hong Kong, The Philippines, Malaysia and so on.
If you are willing to pay, you can even participate in the "deflowering" act, where you'd get a virgin child - male or female - for his / her first night.
What you do to them, as long as you don't kill them, is entirely up to you.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Gohnorrea...s .....
Herpes....
Chlamydia....
Syphilli
Genital Warts...
HPV....
Hepatitus...
Trichomoniasis..
I know! Things the average Slashdotter won't ever have to worry about.
ding ding ding
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
Great, two hot Chinese women whose 'superpowers' are that they can fuck anyone and inject any needle without being harmed. I guess it was about time X-Men went hentai and became XXX-Men.
I'm imagining them in the leather bodysuits from the movies, but crotchless and with a opening at the elbows for shooting up. Their arch-nemesis shall be Donkey Boy and Heroin Girl.
Oh god, what kind of pathetic geek am I? I just turned an important piece of AIDS research that could help millions into a bad porno comic joke... I will log off before I embarrass myself further.
If you need me, I will be in my bedroom, masturbating...
You need to correct that even further. A greater NUMBER of people will die in the third-world, but even there, AIDS deaths are a very small PROPORTION of total deaths. People in the third-world are still dying from the "basics" - Hunger, Poverty, Diaorrhea, Cholera, TB, Malaria, e.t.c. Civilisation will end when we acknowledge George Bush as our Anointed God-On-Earth and (Shudder, Shiver) start pasting "What would W do?" on our car bumpers.
My Favourite Meme
The key is the fact the Gene patens have blocked research into it. Every time a lab does something with the caucasian mutation this lab send out a cease and desist. They guy who they found it on originally is opposed to it, but he has no say, even if it is his body. Another thing software and genes have in common, neither should have patents.
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
I've heard figures that around 1/3 of the total population of some African countries are HIV positive. Granted, a bunch will get picked off by something else before AIDS has a chance to get them, but it's still a significant proportion. Besides, most AIDS-related deaths aren't due to the virus itself, but rather it weakening your immune system enough for something else to get you.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
You've picked a few African countries, and you're most likely correct about them. But I've used the blanket term Third-World - in response to the post above mine), which includes India and China (that's a minimum of 2 Billion people. AIDS prevalence in this entire group is much, much less than 1%). But starvation/malnutrition, and the other diseases I've mentioned are at least 10%. I think the priorties there are clear. Most western agencies, when talking about India and China always mention figures, but they neve talk about percentages. In India, according to official figures there are meant to 0.5 million people suffering from AIDs, and think it's double that in China, of course, these official figures are usually crap... however, let's assume they're double that number, that still is nothing compared to the number of people dying from other diseases/afflictions.
My Favourite Meme
Very true, but keep in mind that this was not true immunity. The original ~10 prostitutes found immune were then taken away from their constant exposure to HIV and some were put on antiretrovirlas. It was only after this removal that they began to progress to AIDS. There are several ways in which our body can outmaneuver HIV. This adaptive immune response is remarkable though I feel that the protein APOBEC3G is also worth mentioning. APOBEC3G is an intracellular antiretoviral protein that "interferes with the replication of HIV by incorporating itself into virus particles and damaging the genetic material of the virus. The viral protein Vif can halt this process in two ways". Vif is one of atleast 15 proteins found in HIV's 9 definitive genes. For an interesting read: http://www.retrovirology.com/content/1/1/28
This gene has been known of for quite some time. What is odd is that it was previously thought that only (primarily) caucasians had the mutant gene.
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
HIV/AIDS caused by changing sexual mores? Puh-leese.
Perhaps you could explain how this observation works with the fact that the most virulent New World disease (Syphilis) managed to spread like wildfire from Catholic Spain at the height of the Inquisition, throughout European society. And while you're at it, perhaps you could explain how it was still a significant and common disease at the height of the Victorian period.
Maybe I'll save you the effort. Both Syphilis and HIV/AIDS were enabled by revolutions in *Human Mobility*, not changes in morality. The syphilis epidemic erupted at the same time that commerce via ship hit a spike, and HIV/AIDS hit us when air travel spiked.
It's no surprise that 'Patient Zero' in the US HIV/AIDS outbreak was an airline steward. It *is* a coincidence that he happened to be gay.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
I think it is time to officially retire the term "third world" since hardly anyone has a clue what it means and keeps making up their own definitions. I have to admit that including a communist country with nuclear weapons is the most imaginitive inclusion in the "third world" I've yet to see.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_world
Isn't it ironic?
HIV is the virus, AIDS is the symptoms. No you can never directly die from HIV, HIV only infects CD4 positive cells; ie, T-Helper Cells. Unfortunatly T-Helper Cells are nessecary for an active responsive immune system, without it, you quickly succumb to a multitude of usually harmless diseases that can kill, eg herpes... some countries in africa the possibility of contracting HIV during your lifetime is now nearly 100% for teenagers.
Mike Jones-{ Genetic Engineer, in Training }-
http://www.geocities.com/endeavour_uksa/article.ht ml
s _n6_v18/ai_19447788/pg_2
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1511/i
Not being a racist troll here, but from my experience, culturally Asians seem to be a lot less promiscuous,
But you're talking about an exponential process. If everybody has unprotected sex with n persons while being infected, as soon as n > 1, the actual value of n matters very little: the disease will spread with catastrophic speed. It might take more time to infect the whole population, but not that much.
As an example, if in one case the process spreads with multiplicative factor n1 = 2, and in the other n2 = 8, then it will only take 3 times as long for the first process to infect as many people. If n1 = 2 and n2 = 16, it will be 4 times as long.
The ratio between total infection times is equal to the ratio of the logs of the two multiplicative factors. You can check by yourself, it's just basic logarithm / exponent manipulation.
Of course in this simplistic analysis we ignore repetitions (people already infected do not contribute to any further increase in infections). But these effects become significant only when a sizeable proportion of the population is infected, so essentially if one population is small and the other is large, the disease will spread faster, for a longer time, in the second one.
Oh, btw, remember that in the case of India and China put together, we are talking about one third of mankind.
But there is an even more depressing aspect of AIDS. With AIDS, abstinence is only a protection if it is absolute. There are some populations in which such a thing exists. Most of the time it is enforced by scaringly oppressive traditions / religions / customs. In other words, when AIDS becomes widespread enough to have a significant impact on the population, it turns obscurantism into a Darwinian advantage.
Thomas-
It is easy to say that education will solve the problem, but that doesn't even work in the US. Many people know of the dangers of AIDS and yet still have unprotected sex. It is stupid, but they do it. And this is in a country with relatively high ability to pass the protection/abstinence memes.
In Africa there are massive cultural and practical barriers in place. It is much much harder to transmit this information widely, and there are strong cultural biases against abstinence/protection. The most sickening cultural belief is that having sex with a virgin cures you of AIDS. This is especially bad because between the long standing beliefs and the fact that people are sexually active younger there, the only virgins are very young children or babies. It's fairly horrifying.
It will take a lot of time, effort and money to bring the AIDS crisis under control in Africa. President Bush was wise (for once) to commit billions to fighting the problem there. He was also wise to recommend that the program have an abstinence element to it. The Uganda program that contained an abstinence element was unusually successful in fighting AIDS in that country. I only wish he had lived up to his commitment by actually funding it at the level he promised.
My parents spent the last 3 years living in Lesotho (the country inside of S. Africa), so they've spent a lot of time discussing this with the local Peace Corps volunteers. It is fairly discouraging, but very important that we do something about it.