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Gene Found In Black Death Survivors Stops HIV
WindozeSux writes "According to research done by Dr. Stephen O'Brien, a mutated gene known as delta 32 found in Black Death survivor descendants, stops HIV in its tracks. In order to be immune both parents have to have the delta 32 gene. From the Article: 'In 1996, research showed that delta 32 prevents HIV from entering human cells and infecting the body. O'Brien thought this principle could be applied to the plague bacteria, which affects the body in a similar manner. To determine whether the Eyam plague survivors may have carried delta 32, O'Brien tested the DNA of their modern-day descendents...'"
You should pick another boogeyman. Birth rates are declining worldwide. Over a third of all countries now have birth rates below replacement levels. Places like Japan, Italy, Germany, and Spain are expected to have population levels 30% lower than they are now by 2050.
The big factor is cities. Over 50% of the world's population now lives in a city. On a farm, more kids meant more helping hands. In a city those helping hands aren't needed, and in fact pull down prosperity levels. As such, people choose not to have them.
As China and India become more prosperous, they too will join the club.
In short, the "Population Bomb" was a dud.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
UCSC Genome browser - has the whole gene, but you can zoom in on segments if you want.
NIH - this has links or links to links of everything you'd want to know.
You mention a very, very interesting fact, which blew me away when I learned it about our genetics. What is it with (1) all this pointless intron DNA, and (2) all this God-damned splicing? Why don't the prokaryotes do that stuff? This is, as you say, weird.
So is it an accident? Given that there've been only about 10^5 generations of homo sapiens, whereas bacteria do that every 2-3 years, and they've been around billions of years -- is it just that we've not evolved as far as they? Will our DNA be a lot tighter in 30,000,000 AD (assuming we survive at all)?
Or is there some reason designed in by...(audience holds breath)...no, not God for, uh, Christ's sake...but by natural selection that gives us an advantage with all this DNA swapping?
Have I not heard the thought that it might be because a bacteria's big problem is a hostile environment and his lack of ability to manipulate it other than eating it, whereas one of our big problems (before modern medicine) was fighting off viral attackers? And, if that's the case, this screwball shuffling around of the DNA, plus "hiding" the real genes amongst acres of useless, identical-looking trash are clever techniques for making us much more elusive targets for viruses.
Joe Virus successfully invades the pathetic human cell, sneaking past the killer white cells, snipping the wire and snaking under the membrane while the guard dogs howl....he makes it! Cleverly picks the lock on the super-secure citadel of the nucleus, gets out his dynamite, blows the doors off the chromatid fiber, and, chortling, inserts his DNA sequence into the host DNA.
But alas for Joe, 90% of the DNA is never used, and so Joe has a 90% chance of having inserted himself into a string of rubbish that will never be transcribed. Poor bastard, waiting and waiting...
Now to get back on topic, I've also heard that one caution people have about gene therapy (such as slipping in a gene that protects against HIV) is that if there are these ancient unexpressed viruses lying about in our DNA, what might we do if we muck around with it by slipping in some new genes? Might we accidentally "turn on" a virus dormant since the next to last Ice Age? If it's just a Neanderthal version of a head cold, big deal -- but what if it's something far worse than AIDS itself? As fatal as AIDS, say, but with a 60 day mean survival time and the ability to be spread through the air? Brrr.
That was my first thought, for a change the AC was useful and I'd give him points if I could. I think it was an episode of Nova or something, they found an isolated community in Britain where half of the town had survived a plague outbreak, and had then not seen a lot of migration since, so they could test the descendants of the survivors.
They tested the people whose ancestors had lived, and it turned out that you could have three situations: If you did not have this mutated gene, you would die. If you had inherited it from one parent, you would get very sick, but survive. If you had inherited it from both parents you wouldn't get the black plague at all.
They talked about how the plague spread, and the areas where it had hit most often over the past couple thousand years (there's evidence of it sweeping through Europe in the dark ages) had the highest incidence of this delta-32 gene, and so would have a higher percentage of the population immune to it. They estimated that up to 14% of Europeans had this gene and if they were right, that same number would also be completely uninfectable by HIV. They didn't speculate as to what would happen to the people who were partially immune to the plague, but we hear of people who are infected with HIV and 10-15 years later haven't developed AIDS symptoms.
I brought the documentary to the attention of the HIV researchers at my office, and they said there wasn't an easy method of introducing that gene into people affected by this. I know people who work at Genzyme, they use genetic samples to grow new skin cells for burn victims and new cartilage for knee surgeries. It's not completely out of the realm of possibility that they could figure out a way to grow some white blood cells to match the patient, but with that delta 32 gene introduced. It's unlikely that they'll work it out sooner than 10-20 years from now, though, so it's science fiction until then.
-jpowers