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Scientists Expose Weak DNA in HIV
Ace905 writes "The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases announced Thursday that they had discovered a very promising 'weak spot' in the HIV virus. The HIV virus, a progenitor to full blown AIDS has eluded all attempts at a vaccine since it was discovered sometime in the 1970's. The major problem with developing a vaccine initially was isolating the virus. Conventional viruses are often defeated with existing drugs, or after being tested against new compounds. HIV has been unique, and staggering in it's ability to resist all attempts at treatment by mutating its own genetic code. HIV is able to resist, with great effectiveness, any drug or combination drug-therapy that is used against it."
I have a feeling it will just change it self again, this little bugger is a diehard
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Transmitted through the sharing of unsterilized ATM machines, IC circuits, LCD displays and PIN numbers, the HIV virus is a deadly threat to humanity.
Attack it's weak spot for massive damage.
That someone who can use a computer doesn't know that IT'S means IT IS.
The story that is referenced in the BBC news article refers to the structure of an antibody binding the gp120 surface glycoprotein of HIV. This has nothing to do with 'weak' DNA. The reason why this is exciting is that the b12 region is relatively invariable, whereas most antibodies made against HIV bind variable regions of the surface glycoproteins that are prone to change from virus to virus as the genome is mutated. The majority of anti-HIV antibodies are therefore only useful against specific isolates and can be easily escaped by mutation. Antibodies against the b12 region are therefore potential vaccine candidates.
To patent this... and patent the part of the virus in question.
The Pfizer receptor!!!
How many "this could be the cure for AIDS/Cancer/Virginity" articles get posted on /. every month?
I'll believe it when the treatment actually gets used to eradicate the disease.
Guess I'll go back to holding my breath.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Although it may be adaptive, as a strain or population, surely no one is claiming that individual virus are able to change in any way?
Imho, science has no place for such literary free license.
Words to men, as air to birds.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for slashdot.sig (129323052 bytes).
The owners of roughly 1 million Slashdot accounts rejoice as they hear the news: They can now fuck around without fear of AIDS!
Conventional viruses are often defeated with existing drugs, or after being tested against new compounds
Not at all. Viruses are extremely, extremely difficult to defeat. There is a reason cold & flu are still around.
How many drugs are effective against viruses? Very, very few.
...oh, I forgot, this is /. The only thing in hand is...
Insightful and funny -- not to mention insightful and funny.
This message brought to you by the department of redundancy department's department of redundancy.
The universe is a figment of its own imagination.
and the title is complete bull. Nowhere in the article is there any mention of 'DNA'. wtg slashdot...
Fully 1/10th of sub-Saharan Africans are at risk. It's already created the largest ophan population since the Spanish Flu of 1918 (my great-granparents died in that one). I hope the antigen attack trials go quickly and smoothly, and the vaccine gets into circulation post-haste.
After that's done, there's still TB, malaria, thypoid, cholera, and unmitigated greed to go after.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
The article summary needs further assistance. AIDS was identified in 1981.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Over 30 years & only a single weak spot is discovered.
Do you destroy it, or learn to get it to work in your favor ?
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
You have viruses like this when you use a system that wasn't intelligently designed. That's why I'm glad to use Linux so I don't have to worry about these kind of threats.
People get what they deserved.
Viruses only have RNA, right? Not true DNA?
...that when I RTFA, the only thing I could think of was the Yavin briefing on the Death Star?
"Great shot, kid, that was one-in-a-million!"
God, I'm geeky...
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
There is no weak DNA in HIV. Why? HIV is a retrovirus, that means the HIV genome is RNA. The RNA is transcribed into DNA using an enzyme called a reverse transcriptase. In reverse transcription the DNA is not 'proofread' by the cell to ensure that the DNA is a good copy of the original. Thus, normal mutations that would be corrected in a typical DNA replication process are left in the DNA of a retrovirus, leading to a very high mutation rate. No part of the transcribed DNA is immune to this mutation, so there is no 'weak' DNA.
From the article:
They have published an atomic-level image in Nature showing the antibody, b12, attacking part of a protein on surface of the virus.
So, yes it has been published - and Nature is a top-tier journal.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
HIV is a retrovirus so any weak spots would be found in the RNA, not the nonexistent DNA. Interestingly, the BBC decided to sidestep this issue by not mentioning any nucleic acids at all.
HIV is a retrovirus. It has no DNA, but only RNA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrovirus/
I'm mostly surprised they're still testing surface proteins. You'd think they'd have taken every bit of what HIV presents to the body, cloned it, and tested it as a vaccine. 25 years of work and they are just now testing this protein? WTF?!
Gods "revenge on gays" wasn't perfect? Well, that about wraps it up for god.. I'm moving on to studying zebras now.
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
You mean this vast plague upon mankind has a single point of failure? Wow! They really are close then. I suggest two possible courses of action from here: 1. Figure out how to plug a Powerbook into it, then type furiously. 2. Fly along the equator of the virus at top speed and fire into its exhaust port.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
When it comes to reporting on biological sciences, I trust my dog Fido more than I trust the BBC.
1. The BBC article linked says nothing about HIV being discovered in the 1970. RTFA.
2. HIV was discovered in the 1983/1984 timeframe. Who discovered it first is the basis of a long standing dispute between Robert Gallo and Luc Montagnier. Google it.
...we'll release the virus into the population and all the fundamentalists who won't let their children take Guardasil and the AIDS vaccine will watch their genetic line dead-end! That's what you wanted to hear from this god-less progressive thinker, right? Silly trolls.
Blar.
For those of you that are interested in this story, I highly recommend the PBS Frontline documentary The Age of AIDS. Being too young to really understand the events in the news which unfolded around its discovery, it truly changed the way I look at this disease.
HIV is an RNA virus, NOT a DNA virus. Medical science knows a lot about treating DNA based viruses; But there are little to no treatments for RNA viruses. HIV has caused researchers to consider the RNA cycle, also. I wish them luck, and good hunting.
What do you mean 'HIV has never been seen...'? That's just not true
Ye have made your way from the worm to man, and much within you is still worm.
HIV has been unique, and staggering in it's ability to resist all attempts at treatment by mutating its own genetic code.
Hey, at least if you try it both ways, you'll be right half the time.
Hint: Possessive its has no apostrophe.
The parent to your post writes in a similar way to several other kooks on here. I have the feeling they are all the same guy.
I'm reading the Nature article right now, and nowhere the presumed "atomic-level image [..] showing the antibody b12" is to be found.
:)
Therefore, I tend to accept the BBC report with a grain of salt. It's much more interesting to say "oooh! they published an image of the antibody!" than to say "well, they published an article full of biomedical details in which we don't understand anything, with a huge table full of numbers (yes! numbers!) and a couple of strange colored picture we don't know how they made"...
One word : journalists. Bah.
That said, the article is indeed interesting, but it's not the first time the gp120 glycoprotein is being targeted with some kind of drug. And they're still at the in-vitro phase, not even at the ex-vivo trial phase...
Only wish you were not serious, but sadly, apparently you are. Which raises the question how people actually can believe such utter and complete nonsense?
The HIV virus has not been seen by the eye or by light microscopy, as it is only 110 to 140 nanometer in diameter and below practical optical resolution. Although a group at the university of Chicago has been able to visualize something of its behavior by fluorescently tagging it. Of course then it is just a bright dot. However, HIV has been visualized numerous times by electron microscopy, both transmission EM and scanning EM. We also have structures of many of the proteins that constitute the HIV virus, from X-ray crystallography. There are still gaps in our knowledge of the structure of HIV, but in fact it is now much better documented than many other viruses. We also have tens of thousands of genome sequences, partial or whole, of the HIV virus.
We know that HIV causes AIDS. We know that drugs that block the replication cycle of HIV can prevent AIDS, at least for some years. We know how many of these drugs dock on the proteins of HIV. We know how the virus can develop resistance to these drugs, because we can find the patterns in the genome of the virus. We can predict a patient's future health by studying the genome of the virus. We know what mutations in which locations on which proteins are responsible for resistance. We know that if you give drugs with better profile against resistant viruses to people who have failed treatment, they can suppress the symptoms of AIDS. We know that amount of viruses and of CD4 positive immune cells that are destroyed by HIV, correlates with a patient's health. We know why a few lucky people can carry HIV for a long time without developing AIDS, and which mutations in the human genome are responsible for that. By now, HIV must nearly be the best characterized of all human viruses, although it is a difficult target.
So please, please, refrain from repeating a myth. This is not just some innocent scientific confusion. Ultimately, stories like this do have the potential to kill people, and if you repeat them, you are making yourself an accessory to murder.
I am unsure how many of you do research on this subject, but I recommend that people watch the documentary The Other Side of AIDS. It has amazing interviews and explanations by a Nobel Prize winning scientist for his discovery in AIDS meds, as well as Dr Peter Duesberg, a professor of molecular cell biology from the University of California who shed real light on alot of the bogus statements made about HIV. If you explore these areas, and find out that the HIV has actually never been seen, just the antibodies...supposedly...how on earth are scientists finding a vaccination or any treatment for an unknown/unseen virus? I wish I was kidding.
I wish you were too. Because now you're just an ill-informed crackpot, just like the filmmakers who made "The Other Side of AIDS". How on Earth this got modded "Insightful" is beyond me. For those of you not in the know, "The Other Side Of AIDS" is just the latest bunch of idiots trying to push the agenda that HIV does not cause AIDS. And that HIV positives are better off not taking antiretrovirals. If you really believe that pile of stinking shit, moosejaw, I can suggest a carefully monitored experiment that will win you a Nobel Prize at the very least. You like Nobel Prizes, right? And please, recruit all of your HIV-is-not-the-cause buddies.
Experiment:
Test yourselves for HIV. Make sure you're negative. Now inject yourselves with a large bolus of HIV-infected blood. Do nothing out of the ordinary for 10 ten years, take no antiretroviral drugs, and get back to us with the results. Since HIV doesn't cause AIDS, right, you'll be great, you'll have disproved 99.9999999% of conventional medical wisdom, and earned yourself an easy million from the Prize committee. Congratulations! Now get to it.
To tone it down a little, the easiest way to refute your idiocy is to refer to the many and varied mortality outcomes-based clinical trials of antiretroviral drugs in AIDS patients. I suggest using the search functions on PubMed or even a general journal like NEJM or JAMA. All approved antiretroviral drugs in combination regimes, when taken as prescribed, extend the lifespan of AIDS patients well beyond the life expectancy of an AIDS patient not taking antiretrovirals. Dispute that. If AIDS was not caused by HIV, CD4 counts would not improve, and patients would not live one year longer than AIDS patients who weren't taking antiretrovirals.
Will the human population ever get to a level of education where we don't have to rehash 20 year-old debates over basic crap like "What causes AIDS?" "Why can't I see a pretty picture of AIDS on a microscope?" "What if we're all wrong, I'm a genius, and HIV doesn't cause AIDS?" HIV deniers remind me a lot of the nutty strict Creationists on evolution.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Not to mention that HIV is a retrovirus, meaning that its genetic code is stored in RNA rather than DNA. The process of converting RNA back to DNA is notoriously inaccurate, which is why it mutates so fast. If it were a DNA virus it wouldn't be nearly as difficult to make a vaccine.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
I read that there was some guy who actually wanted to inject himself with HIV to prove it didn't cause AIDS. Ah, here it is.
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
The first known case of HIV was in 1959, determined posthumously by samples taken from an exhumed body. The virus is older than that, and like ebola is thought to have crossed over from an animal vector due to the ingestion of bush meat. In the late 1970's unusual symptoms began manifesting themselves in certain populations.
:) Giving the original poster the benefit of a doubt, perhaps they meant to state that the effects of HIV were first discovered in the 1970's?
You are correct that the virus was not officially "discovered" until the 1980's, but its effects were first noticed in the 1970's, and tests have determined it was active in the human population long before that.
Peace,
-Joe G.
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
I should have added to my post... Do no flame if you haven't seen the doc. I couldn't believe it myself...However I verified the facts and have questioned many experts on the subject. Please show me a photo of HIV, and not a computer model guessing what it looks like. Please show me the original study showing that HIV is the cause of AIDS. You won't be able to because they don't exist. Watch the show, and take the word of the experts who speak about it. Don't shoot the messenger. Also..this is only my second or third post on all of slashdot, so please don't confuse me with someone else.
> If you explore these areas, and find out that the HIV has actually never been seen, just the antibodies...
4 040,00.html
_ friday_9_june_2006_1.php
Uh, right. You know that the we've sequenced the HIV virus, right? Not only has it been sequenced, but it's been sequenced so many times that we can see the evolution of it's genetic code over time, and can tell which people infected which people. We can tell that the "Libyan seven" are innocent. We can tell that HIV evolved from SIV (the simian version of HIV) multiple times.
Re: Libyan Seven
"By looking at the genome sequence of the virus found in children at Bambino Gesu hospital, we established that the estimated date of the most common recent ancestor for each cluster predated March 1998, sometimes by several years."
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,197
"The story revolves around Dr. David Acer, a Florida dentist who died in 1990 from complications of AIDS. Dr. Acer's death would have been far from remarkable at the time -- the AIDS epidemic was quite visible by the late 1980s, and one death earned no more attention than any other. Dr. Acer's story, however, extends beyond his private life and into his practice. You see, Dr. Acer had multiple patients that had been diagnosed as infected with HIV within a couple of years of his death." Sequence analysis of HIV in his patients shows that he infected his patients.
http://scienceblogs.com/evolgen/2006/06/phylogeny
Regarding your 2nd point, and your "err, 1983/84", please allow me to disambiguate.
The Wikipedia article refers to the discovery of AIDS, which is the modern label applied to the clusters of disease cases with similar histories and symptoms which first identified (apparently) in 1981, although it seems some doctors and researchers were aware of unusual disease clusters for a few years leading up to that point. Recognition of AIDS as a disease led to researchers looking for a cause, which led to the subsequent discovery of the HIV virus. In any case, all of this activity took place in the 1980s within a few years, not "sometime in the 1970's".
This page includes some audio clips from interviews with some of the researchers: NIH researchers discuss the history of AIDS.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Another holier than thou asswipe:
d .html?record=17
"Experiment:
Test yourselves for HIV. Make sure you're negative. Now inject yourselves with a large bolus of HIV-infected blood. Do nothing out of the ordinary for 10 ten years, take no antiretroviral drugs, and get back to us with the results."
Duh - it's already being DONE by 300,000 Americans, who don't KNOW they are 'HIV positive', according to the CDC... Therefore they aren't taking your wonder drugs - i.e. POISONS...
So they should be dying from AIDS. But they aren't. They should also be SPREADING the virus and the number of so-called 'HIV positive' people should be increasing year upon year. It isn't.
http://www.amfar.org/cgi-bin/iowa/news/feat/recor
The HIV myth is the end result of the pathetic nature of what passes for scientific 'research' nowadays: thick as shit 'experts' chasing research grants and getting paid millions for NOT finding cures, all the while suppressing ANY dissent. Even the most BASIC experiments which Duesberg and others have suggested be done, to show whether HIV actually causes AIDS or not, have not been ALLOWED.
I DO hope you end up taking AZT or other 'anti retroviral' drugs, or one of your family members, so you can watch what the DRUGS do to people - you idiot...
AZT is poison and kills people - who are then said to have 'died from AIDS'.
Didn't you see Nkosi Johnson being poisoned to death by his white foster mother?
Try reading "AZT: poison by prescription" if you can spare time out from slapping yourself on the back about how 'caring' you are...
You know nothing about the other side of AIDS - i.e. the dissenting opinions. Isn't it odd that Duesberg's hypotheses are SUPPORTED by the FACTS, but the establishment hypotheses are NOT?
Your continued ad hominem bullshit about any dissenter being a 'crackpot' speak volumes...
Worried your research budget and cushy job for life is going to be taken away from you?
If you explore these areas, and find out that the HIV has actually never been seen, just the antibodies...supposedly...how on earth are scientists finding a vaccination or any treatment for an unknown/unseen virus? I wish I was kidding.
:-p g ishmail/HIV.htmlh iv+virus+image
You sure are kidding. It has been sighted!!
http://www.stanford.edu/group/virus/retro/2005gon
And there are many actual pictures and also the reconstructed structure of the virus here:
http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&q=
Please show me a photo of an atom, and not a computer model guessing what one looks like. Until then, forget that whole atomic theory of matter and go back to your earth, water, wind, and fire.
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
From reading these comments, it seems as though HIV evolves just like any other organism, only on an accelerated timeline due to the large carrying capacity of the environment and the incredibly short "ingestion" time needed to for the virus to copy itself.
Would you agree with that?
So, in the early stages of the virus, perhaps it didn't have the 'sugary shell?' (Perhaps they picked that up after infecting a rabid M&M eater.?)
Which brings me to my real question: Wouldn't that mean that todays HIV is much 'stronger' and more 'fit' than the HIV of 1980?
But if you stick your fingers in your eyes and keep humming, it's very hard to see the HIV virus.
Since the HIV seeks out a t-cell, why not create t-cell traps? The virus would attach itself, and then it would be eaten. Use the virus' behavior to destroy it.
Who says they aren't doing both? They infect someone else, they die, the number stays the same! Just because there are promiscuous people having unprotected sex with everyone they meet doesn't mean they are passing the virus to each person. The second person could already be one of those "infected who doesn't know," which also helps keep down the new cases that you seem to need as evidence. And if course they don't die of AIDS, they die of the flu or a cold or any other number of common illnesses. I can see why the doctor you quote would ignore this, but why do you?
Duesberg is a crackpot who some how believes that a retroviruses must be harmless to survive, but for some reason doesn't explain why the feline leukemia virus is deadly. It is a retrovirus, so why does it kill host animals that are infected by it? When he can explain away the people who died before treatment with AZT became the norm, then maybe he will be taken seriously.
Just waving your arms and declaring that 'It must be harmless, here is logic on why,' doesn't make the facts disappear.
one
two
three
four
They're not exactly tough to dig up these days if you know how to use google, so I must assume that you did not even do a rudimentary search for yourself before believing that documentary you watched.
Why is Duesberg considered a crackpot in this subject, but is a valued member of ever other scientific circle he has been involved with regarding his opinions? He is asking that HIV and AIDS is held up to the same standard as every other virus has in regard to classification and determining of prevalance etc...Duesberg continues to make huge strides and is nominated for many awards for his research, and heads a department at one of the best schools in the country...Must be a crackpot. Is the fellow who won a Nobel Prize for his work on AIDS meds a crackpot as well when he comes out and draws the same conclusion as Duesberg? Just as most things in medicine, follow the money... This documentary does a fantastic job questioning the entire HIV and AIDS situation, including the actual tests that determine if you have HIV. The HIV and AIDS theory has so many holes when i comes to science and theory that it is sickening. The people who have believed the hype and propaganda on this disease are the ones who are crackpots...just research the oherside starting with this documentary and come back and comment.
Is that a buffer overflow?
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
If you have an open mind, if you are willing to accept the possibility that the medical establishment is not a perfect institution. Then maybe you would be willing to listen to an alternative viewpoint.
1 32861595&q=the+other+side+of+aids
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-266890172
I challenge you to respond to any or of the conclusions in this documentary. It is important to note that if a person gets a cold virus, that virus is easily detectable in large quantities in that persons blood. The HIV virus is rarely/if ever isolated in a patients blood, the tests do not test for the virus itself, they only test for non-specific antibodies that may or may not indicate the presence of HIV. That is what the makers of the tests state.
The facts are that anyone that tests positive for HIV is told that they will die. That there life will irreversibly change, most enter into a emotional state of fear, dread, shame. This emotional state KILLS PEOPLE, your emotional state directly affects your health. Many go onto a prescribed regimen of dangerous drugs, that cause harm to the body, whose side effects precisely match those of the symptoms of AIDS, wasting, fatigue, immune suppression and on and on.
Please don't believe me, do your own research.
The simple facts are that billions and billions of dollars are given to scientists to research the establishments view of AIDS. Alternative research is not funded and is shunned. To this date there has been no scientific studies that prove a relationship between the HIV retro-virus and the disease known as AIDS. No explanation as to how HIV can cause AIDS, through what mechanisms. Sure there are a theories but few facts. In 1984 when AIDS was first "discovered" there was no indication of a relationship between HIV and AIDS, no scientific studies, no peer reviewed papers. If there was no evidence how did they "know" HIV causes AIDS. It is important to know that no other retro-virus in existence has anywhere near the same viral-genetic-infection pattern that AIDS supposedly has.
Again this is a fairly complicated topic and can be argued for days and days in forums such as this. Watch the video, do your own research and decide for yourself. Don't believe me, don't believe your doctor do your own research, your life or the lives of friends and family could depend on this.
Just take away its credit card.
Table-ized A.I.
"When he can explain away the people who died before treatment with AZT became the norm, then maybe he will be taken seriously."
Duh. *I* can explain why the people who died before 'treatement' with AZT became the norm, died...
They were drug using gay men who had hundreds if not thousands of sexual partners, took poppers every day, and had every STD under the sun.
See? That wasn't that hard, was it? And that's WHY AIDS was known as GRID. Gay Related Immune Deficiency.
You haven't even read anything about the dissidents' hypotheses, yet like a true cult member, you still parrot the party line as if you have a clue what you're talking about.
Next you'll be asking me why all those people in Africa are dying of 'AIDS' if not because of HIV...
You cretin.
Read some dissident sites, then come back when you've actually bothered to read the OTHER side of the argument... You know... the one you're trying to refute...
Want more funding.
What we need is a prize for a cure withing x number of year just like all the others, not this milking.
Both terms have been around just about forever (unfortunately). Learn it. Editors, you are getting paid to catch this sort of stuff. Correct it.
Your comment is not witty. It merely demonstrates profound ignorance about a disease that primarily affects non-homosexuals and non-drug-abusers worldwide.
I made a mistake when I said it was discovered sometime in the 1970's. What I meant was, sometime in the 1970's the first few victims of the disease discovered they were deathly ill, and then died, after taking antibiotics and cold and flu medicine. Therefore, we have been fighting the disease since the first known infection and people 'discovered' it when they got it.
My write-up does imply it was 'identified by scientists' in the 1970's and that's not what I meant, but it was 4am.
It sounds ridiculous to say, "We tried penecilan against HIV and nothing happened!" - but that is what happened, and I'm not re-writing history.
---
Fight This Disease!
Ace
As other have pointed out this is simply not true. We have plenty of electron micrographs of HIV, not to mention the sequence of its genome. It is also a complete non-sequiter. We developed very effective vaccines against smallpox, rabies, and polio before we had pictures of them. Hell, the smallpox vaccine was invented before we had the germ theory of disease, let alone electron microscopes. It doesn't hurt to be able to visualize a pathogen, but it isn't absolutely essential.
Peter Duesberg is a very smart guy, but he is not an oracle. There is a long line of very good scientists who have made bizzarely wrongheaded pronouncments. See for example Lord Kelvin (heavier then air flight is impossible) Philipp Lenard (the special theory of relativity is "jewish physics")
Things get nasty when folks mingle the cogent (but IMHO long since answered) questions of Duesberg with blatant lies like "The HIV virus has never been seen".
Figure 3 looks suspiciously like an atomic-level image showing the antibody b12 bound to the surface protein of the HIV virus. However, I'm not sure how able they are to make such an image perfectly accurately - the 1998 article they cited for the structure of gp120 said the structure was determined at a scale of 2.5 angstroms.
ResidntGeek
No, you shouldn't add to your post. You really should not post at all regarding this topic as you clearly are impervious to clue.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
It amazes me that so many semi-intelligent people refuse to actually look at HIV and AIDS realistically, and challenge the dogma that has been pushed by the media and Big Pharma. For every other disease if we HAVE antibodies to a disease it is good. For HIV it is bad. Why is the test not for the virus itself? It is a load of non-scientific hogwash. I despise people who refuse to look at the other side of the coin. It's the same reason we end up with a retarded President, and Fox News. At least give the documentary a chance. Most of you decide its bullshit, and don't even wach it. Very similar to just believing everything big pharma tells you.
I found some more. It seems some scientists call them 'critters'.
There will be no cure for HIV (at least, not a one pill cures all perspective). We have to target numerous facets of the HIV genetic code. HIV, relatively speaking, has a very small genome, and it codes less than 20 proteins. However, each protein has numerous tasks - i.e., the proteins aid/prohibit viral reproduction and aid/prohibit cellular apoptosis (programmed cell death) of infected/uininfected cells.
It is hard to attack HIV because it has many distinct "versions" of attack. And that is where our "cures" come into play. We attack these proteins, one-at-a-time or several at a time. But, as we fight the proteins, they mutate.
Curing AIDS is a long way off, but as we learn more about each individual mechanism, governed by each individual protein, we will eventually be able to beat them all. As we get better at destroying each single protein involved in AIDS pathogenesis, mutations will become less of a factor, because it is a given standard that the majority of mutations (when looked at individually) do not help the organism survive.
Maybe you should rewrite that post. It's "penicillin."
clever!
---
Penicillin this coward!
Ace
"Why is Duesberg considered a crackpot in this subject, but is a valued member of ever other scientific circle he has been involved with regarding his opinions?"
Why is Isaac Newton considered a crackpot in the subjects of (al)chemistry and theology, but a highly regarded physicist? It's the same answer: because the evidence supports him in some areas, but not in others, combined with the unthinking rejection of evidence against a pet theory solely on the basis that it contradicts the pet theory. Pretty simple, really: high status in one area of science means exactly jack shit if you don't have the evidential goods to back up your position. Duesberg's got jack for his denial of the fact that HIV causes AIDS, and is so rightly considered a crank as far as the subject is concerned.
>The major problem with developing a vaccine initially was isolating the virus.
OK, has HIV been isolated yet? Last I heard, no.
HIV deniers remind me a lot of the nutty strict Creationists on evolution
Or those nutcases who believed that the Earth went around the Sun and not vice-versa
Actually, when we started looking back for the origins of the disease, people started dying in largish numbers of a mysterious 'wasting disease' very similar to AIDS in Central Africa in the late 50's and early 60's.
HIV antibodies were found in a blood sample of a British sailor who died in 1956 or '57, iirc, and there are scattered reports of a similar disease occurring in remote villages going as far back as the 30's, which is actually the suspected time frame for when the simian analog to HIV, SIV, first mutated to become infectious to humans, and was probably initially transmitted via butchering infected monkeys.
The disease wasn't widespread in the US until the late 70's, early 80's, and it came here from Africa. There's good evidence to suggest a far more infectious strain arose in Africa in the mid 70's which has lead to the epidemic we have today.
i thought a picture was taken 10 years ago by a school in the midwestern united states where during mitosis hiv's vulnerable stable spot was photographed. i don't recall the specifics and i'm a retard, but i seem to remember a lot of interest in this and then it went away.
While I know (or at least I'm hoping) that the parent was a joke, the scary thing is that some people will think this way. AIDS is the big bogeyman of unprotected sex, but there are plenty of other nasty things you can get that have a lot less publicity. Yes, some won't kill you, some are treatable (though one should note that "treatable" and "curable" are two different things entirely), but the fact is that many of these are still very common , Unpleasant, painful, repulsive, and still possibly disabling, or fatal
While a vaccine or cure for AIDS will no doubt be a wonderful thing, I would very much expect an increase in other nasties to follow suit until they move back into the spotlight.
My question would also be: how do they test it in humans. I'd imagine they can combine infected and uninfected blood in a lab (with both vaccinated and non-vaccinated samples), but who's going to be the first live test? My guess would be a loving partner with an infected spouse (note that not all infections come from having sex with an infectee, there have been cases of tainted blood transfusions etc)
I suppose in the end people will get it just to be safe, as well, but the first while will be interesting.
Also, since HIV targets the immune system, when someone has AIDS - the later stages of the disease in which the immune system is broken (targeted by HIV are T-cells) vaccination may no longer work, since the immune system is no longer capable of producing antibodies, unless the T-cell count can be brought back to a level in which antibodies can be made.
Can you even use a vaccine after-the-fact? I thought the point of such was something akin to forewarning one's immune system ahead of time, training it on how to target invading organisms before they storm the fortress. Once they're inside though, my understanding was that a vaccine was not overly useful. A body might even learn to target invaders on its own, but not fast enough to kill some of the nastier ones before they took down the host. Would a vaccine in the early stages outpace the spread of a virus, or is it too-little-too-late once you've already got it?
Well, since the body is sometimes too good at repelling foreign organisms, then a particular hard-to-repel virus might be useful if the dangerous effects could be removed. However, part of the strength and danger in HIV is that it targets and attacks yours defensive cells (a simplified explanation yes)... so how effective it would be without that part I don't know. However, one could in theory use a fairly benign virus-like organism to attack another, or such things.
I don't see how the remark is particular racist (it didn't mention targeting it against anyone in particular), but without further explanation I would agree that it wasn't a particular useful comment, especially since I *could* see various governments tailoring viruses to target "the enemy"
I do wonder though, how many naturally-occuring viruses etc are out there that target "bad" things, rather than harming the host. Heck, how about a virus (with a known cure) that would target excess fat/cellulite... fat people rejoice. Of course, mutation is a bitch, so it would be very very dangerous ground to tread in case it decides to change and either get out of control or start rampaging around attacking non-desired cells...
It really does sound totally made up. Like something that an insane southern christian would think of to put on a poorly-made sign at a rally.
Hey, if we eliminate virginity on a mass-scale, wont Muslims be pretty fucked? The supply of virgins has to be pretty robust to support the martyrdom industry. Wont somebody pleeease think of the Muslims?
Yeah right, those are all photoshopped!
"I'll see you next time." - LeVar Burton
Language evolves. It is a very interesting topic. English itself is a kind of bastardized German, French, Latin, Scandinavian conglomerate that has evolved a set of "rules", that are not very consistent (if you have every studied Spanish or German seriously you know what I mean), and not really worth defending very hard.
I correct my kids when they use ungramatical language because I want them to know the difference, but I certainly don't get bent out of shape if they speak that way to their peers; that would be stupid since peer acceptance is hugely important to their happyness and development.
Language will change, and you will encounter new forms of it that seem incorrect as long as the language lives. And English is very alive these days.
So deal with it.
I'll tell you a story from real life (my life).
Thirteen years ago I started feeling very tired and caught colds all the time and got shingles even though I was in my mid 20:s.
two years later I caught a pneumonia which didn't respond to normal antibiotics and during the treatment the doctors found a dismal CD4 count (30) and
a very high count of HIV antibodies and I was diagnosed with late stage AIDS.
Fortunately a new combination treatment had popped up and the doctors put me on this. After receiving the combination thearapy the anti body count dropped to
immeasureable levels and the CD4 count has risen to over 600 and today I lead an almost normal healthy life.
I was not aware of my HIV status before getting AIDS, I had a positive life and I ate correctly so if your totally unfounded theory is correct then I would
never have gotten AIDS. And I would definitely gotten worse after knowing that I might not have long to live.
Everyone I know with HIV and who has received the new combination drugs introduced after 1996 have improveded their health, those who only received AZT or no treatment
have died in AIDS. Is that a coincidence, or could the combined medical expertise actually be right?
Figure 3 is a rendering of a model of b12. The BBC article "They have published an atomic-level image in Nature showing the antibody, b12, attacking part of a protein on surface of the virus." seems to imply that the image really shows b12 attacking the surface protein.
I'm not downplaying the results, I'm criticizing the way BBC reported the fact. Simpel as that.
Figure 3a is gp120, with the parts bound to b12 colored green. It doesn't show the unnecessary parts of b12, because they're not the bits attacking gp120. It also shows the parts of the surface in contact with CD4, to show that b12 blocks cell entry. I don't know if you're expecting a photograph of a b12 molecule saying cheese to a disposable camera, but as far as I can tell it's definitely an atomic-level image of b12 attacking the surface of the virus. The BBC reported the fact perfectly accurately.
ResidntGeek
The initial tests look for antibodies to determine whether exposure to HIV has existed. For tracking viral loads, we actually do look at qualitative and quantintative measures of HIV RNA present in a blood sample. PCR tests are NOT looking for antibodies! They are looking for copies/mL of viral RNA. Got it! Everyone of you who do not work in the field, yet feel comfortable spouting off junk science are putting my patients at risk. They want to believe that they don't have to take their meds. The meds have crappy side-effects, that they would like to do without. I've seen what happens when they go without. So STFU!
INTRODUCE A SEQUENCE THROUGH A PLASMID WHEN INFECTION OF DNA HAS BEEN SEEN IN ORDER TO COMPLIMENT THE PROTEIN GENERATED BY THE DNA TO CREATE A COMPLIMENTARY WHICH REVERSES THE WEAK SPOT ON THE DNA TO A STRONG SPOT ON THE PROTEIN GENERATION TECHINIQUE TO TRANSCRIBE FURTHER COMPLIMENTARY ONES ANITDOTE TO THOSE WHICH ENABLE GENERATION OF THEIR PARTS TO GENERATION OF THE HOST PARTS WHICH MAKES OUR DNA STRONGER TO MORE SUSCPETIBLILTY OF ALLOWING OUR IMMUNE SYSTEM TO TOLERATE THE MARCOPHAGES AND B AND T CELL TO PROTECT THE SURROUNDINGS OF THE CELL TILL SUCH TIME OF GENERATION OF THE PROTEIN IF NEED IN CASE OF AN ASSUALT OF AN INCREASED VIOLATED SUB- GENERATION OF THE VIRAL DNA . IF THE NEED TO ENCOMPASS AN ACCUMULATORY GOLGI BODY OR AN ENHANCED ENDOPLASMIC RETICULUM FOR THE ALLOWANCE OF FREEDOM OF FLOW OF THE NUTRITION THROUGHT THE MATRX TO ALLOW THE PROTEINS , THE AMINO ACID POOL TO THE NUCLEUS FOR THE DNA OF OUR VERY NATURE OF OUR EXISTENCE TO FORM A STRONGER PROTEIN AND NOT A MUTATION TO ENCOMPASS A CHANGE DUE TO RESISTIVE ATTACK BY AN VIRAL DNA. sINCE IT EXITS PREOMINANTLY TO A SOURCE OF EXPRESSION COMMOMNLY FELT BY BIOLOGICAL LIFE THOUGH FEELINGS AND SENSATION IN WHICH AN ANDROID WOULD LOL :) WOULD LAUGH AT US .. LOL .. ON THE LIGHTER NOTE ITS BAOUT TIME WE JUS FOUDN THE CURE .. TAKES HALF HOUR OR 60 DAYS .. WE HAVE TO END THIS FEELING OF AN IMMUNE SYSTEM BEING KILLED .. BE EXISTED THROUGH TIME TO SURVIVE ON OUR PLANET WITH HAPPINESS AND CO- EXISTENCE WITH SPECIES OF ALL KINDS .. LOVE THE FACT WE LOVE THE HELP AND SUPPORT .. WE HAVE THE PUSH AND THE FORCE OF THE STONGHOLD SUPPORTING OUR SOLUTION SKILLS .. JUS GET IT .. FIGHT THE DNA .. HERE ARE PEOPLE WHO CANT FEEL .. :( .. AND WE`VE BEEN TESTIN THEM WITH LAUGHTER I HOPE .. :) .. HAPPIER PLANET .. FINISH EVERYTHING BAD LEFT TO CURE .. GUESS TIGER WOODS IS AN EXAMPLE FOR THE "ACCENTURE" - A COMPUTER BUSINESS SOLUTION COMPANY- A WAY TO TO CLEAN UP THE ROOM TO AKE UP FOR BIGGER SMILES ON EVERYONE .. WE ALL HUMAN .. WE HAD KINGS AND QUEENS AND PRESIDENTS AND HEROS AND VILLAINS AND MURDERERS AND SERIAL KILLER AND PETY THEVIES .. ITS ABOUT TIME TO STOP CONDEMING THE SAME THING AND SUPPORT THE SOLUTION AS PART OF LIFE .. :)FOR THAT :) . FIGHT THE FIGHTER BEFORE THE SIGNAL OF RESISTANCE HAS BEEN RECPETISED TO COUNTER THE SIGNAL OF ALLOCATION OUR SEQUENCES FOR GENRATION OF THE PROTEIN .. LIVE FOR THIS :) .. SIMPLEST SENSE MAKE THE GUY JOIN OUR SIDE CUZ I DOUBT HE GENERATES AN INVIDUAL ORGANISM OF SUCH PROPORTION TO TAKE OVER THE PLANET. sINCE HE WANTS OT FIGHT BY SHUTTING DOWN OURS IN THE SENSE OF EXISTING LIKE A SPECK OF DIRT BEFORE IT HITS THE WASHING MACHINE .. USING CONCEPTS OF REALITY IN EXITENCE INSIDE MAKE US FEEL GOOD YAYYYYYYYYY :).. MAKE THE REVERSE OF HIM TO REVERSE HIS DNA TO MAKE THE OPPOSITE OF HIS EFFECT WHEN HE INFECTS ... MAKES SENSE THAT WAT WE DID FOR WORLD WAR 1 AND 2 WITH THE UN TILL NOW ! WITH PAIN COMES JOY - FOR HIS PAIN RELIEF HIM WITH JOY OF JOININ US LIKE THE MILLION OTHER BACTERIA THAT CO EXIST WITH US .. ITS A FREE PLANET :) .. SHOULD BE EASY .. ITS A COMPLICATED PROBLEM THE SOLUTION LIES ANSWERABLE BEFORE WE NEED TO LAUGH WITH THE GUY AND HIS COMPLICATION . NO MONEY IN THE WALLET - GET MONEY FROM HOST ( MOM AND DAD ) - ADDITIONAL THROUGH JOBS - ANIMALS WHICH CLOSE RELATE THE SENSE OF HAPPINESS TO NOT BRING AN IMMUNOLOGICAL RESPONSE FOR HUMAN HENCE NO RESISTANCE IN THE VOICE BOX TO MAKE ANY SOUND. NO RESISTANCE NO SENSE. PERFECT I GU