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Human Blood May Contain A Cure For AIDS
Lisandro writes "German scientists at the University of Ulm have identified a natural ingredient of human blood that prevents the HIV-1 virus from from infecting immune cells and multiplying. The molecule, which they call virus-inhibitory peptide (VIRIP), promises new types of effective treatment for HIV in the future. 'Tweaks to its amino acid components boosted its anti-HIV potency by two orders of magnitude. Tests also showed that some derivatives of the molecule are highly stable in human blood plasma, and non-toxic even at very high concentrations. A synthetic version of VIRIP also proved effective at blocking HIV, excluding the possibility that some other factor was responsible. VIRIP targets a sugar molecule which HIV uses to infect a host cell. '"
"VIRIP targets a sugar molecule which HIV uses to infect a host cell."
/sarcasm
Well clearly then, the real solution is to destroy all the sugars in your body!
Good for them though, lets get this solved.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Sincerely,
God
Cuz I got it by drinking human blood.
Now is that the definition of irony or what?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Does this stuff affect other viruses? (Is it something that evolved for this reason?) If so, why doesn't the body make more of it already? Would that be too biologically expensive, or would that have problematic effects we haven't recognized yet?
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
"Patch found for AIDS vulnerability in human bodies."
Give Kashyyyk back to the Wookies
Actually the saying goes "The proof of the pudding is in the eating". The saying is one of the oldest in our language. Only recently has it been shortened and corrupted to "The proof is in the pudding". The meaning of the original is quite clear while "The proof is in the pudding" makes no sense at all.
OberGrammarFuehrer von Umlaut at your service!
/clicks heels
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
It's out to reproduce, that's its job.
How'd it get THAT job? I'm gonna kill my guidance counselor...
If you don't mean to be insensitive or brash, why are you being that way?
I have lost two people so far to this disease in my life, and I have more than 5 friends that are HIV+ today.
To say that type 1 diabetes, a treatable disease, deserves more money than HIV/AIDS research is absolutely ludicrious. Type 1 diabetes will kill you if left untreated. HIV/AIDS will kill you, period. The retrovirals help extend your life, but have no doubt, it is a terminal disease. Have you ever seen someone die of HIV/AIDS? Please go down to Africa and explain to the people living with HIV and AIDS there that they aren't as important as a diabetes patient.
Are you aware how expensive the medication to treat HIV is? Compare that to the cost of insulin then get back to me.
It may be true to a certain degree in the West, but in Africa where 15 million have died from AIDS, and 24 million are infected, it's clearly not so 'easy' to prevent.
Errr... the problem with HIV/AIDS in Africa is a cultural and economic one, not one of "can't be prevented."
The use of condoms drastically reduces infection rates. The problem that I've been reading about in Africa is that condoms are not utilized because they interfere too much in the love making process (ie, takes too long to put them on, and they're too expensive). A prototype device is being introduced here to try and address those issues.
Spread of this disease is preventable (which was the GP post's point); efforts to educate and provide the protection would be immediately effective versus waiting for a scientific cure... which would also have to be made available cheaply enough to help impoverished Africa (ie, not for many years after being made available on the market).
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
Our calculations show that you are no longer necessary.
Sincerely
Steven Hawking
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
non-toxic even at very high concentrations
Does this stuff affect other viruses? (Is it something that evolved for this reason?) If so, why doesn't the body make more of it already? Would that be too biologically expensive, or would that have problematic effects we haven't recognized yet?
Well, it is a miracle drug that cures everything, from deadly viruses, bacterial infections, even cancers. The problem is that VIRIP, or as its know under its commercial name, Trutonin, obliterates the person's immune system... Creating a lifelong dependance on the drug.
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
That may be true, in the same, clinical way that lung cancer and obesity are easily preventable diseases. The complication arises when you try to change human behavior on a societal level. People consume carbonated soda and french fries becase it tastes good! People smoke because it feels good! The same is true of sex and IV drugs.
Add to this the fact that humans are very bad at assessing risk, and you have a recipe for the HIV epidemic.
Sure, some people weren't as careful as they should have been and got infected, but guess what... They live in the same world with the rest of us and can subsequently spread their illness. This is a public health issue. Morality judgements of people infected with STDs don't bring about cures for them any faster. Nor does the attempted imposition of the same morality on the rest of the, as yet, uninfected population seem to be having much effect in slowing down the spread either, let alone stopping it.
How 'bout instead of taking research money away from HIV and giving it some more morally worthy disease, we just resolve to spend more research money on all of them and stop making questionable moral assessments of sick people.
If you never make mistakes, it's probably because you're not doing anything.
No, it won't. Each virus has a very specific target that it uses to inject itself into it's host cells, so this will really only benefit HIV or other viruses that have the same attack vector.
Imagine a wall with hundreds of doors on it, each with a different type of lock. Viruses are like burglars trying to break in, but they each only know how to pick one kind of lock. This type of treatment will result in blocking only the doors that have the same type of lock that HIV uses. Hepatitis, for example, would use a very different lock (different wall actually).
Or, since this is slashdot, you could also look at it as a host's firewall. HIV may attack a specific port, and this treatment may block only that port.
This is a very simplistic way of explaining it, but for the most part, this type of treatment only has an effect on HIV's specific attack characteristics. Viruses are usually very particular about what types of cells they attack, and then it can get even more specific. I'd view this as a specific fix.
Now, where things can start to get interesting is if they can manage to generalize this approach to find the appropriate blocking peptides for other types of viruses. If the approach can be generalized, then you might be able to find treatments for other viruses, but the hope for a universal cure for viruses isn't very feasible.
Viruses hijack our own internal machinery to reproduce themselves, so you can't exactly target them the same way that you can bacteria. (There are some common points that are being used to target specific classes of viruses, but I'm not aware of any universal point of attack). You can pretty much target viruses are three points: 1) at the point of infection into the host cell, 2) replication of the virus, 3) at the point where the daughter viruses leave the host cell. The approach mentioned in the article is of type 1.
"If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research." - Einstein
Comparing AIDS and the common cold is ridiculous. You can get the cold from almost anything, but to get AIDS you have to either have sex with someone who has it, or inject their blood...As a virus goes, it's extremely difficult to catch.
While blaming the victim is rarely worthwhile, this is a disease that could basically be eradicated by education, testing, and self control. The reason it's spread so widely is that people aren't into any of those things.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Africa has national leaders that say there is no link between HIV and AIDS.
In Africa it is a common belief that using a condom is "unmanly" and a woman, even a prostitute, that requests it is likely to get a beating. Condom use is a joke in Africa - it isn't going to happen.
What this means is you have infected people running around loose infecting more people constantly. Sure, there are millions of infected people. People that don't understand how the disease is transmitted and are constantly lied to about it. And people that are so completely caught up in the cultural prohibitions about things like condoms and birth control that it will never stop.
Spending money in Africa to control AIDS is like sending food aid to the warlords in Somalia.
My fiance is a Red Cross certified HIV/AIDS instructor, so I've gotten a good earfull of what is and isn't true about AIDS "cures".
The "cocktail" that's currently used to treat HIV infection drugs to prevent HIV from entering cells, drugs to keep it from reproducing inside cells, and drugs to keep it from breaking out of infected cells. From what I read in the summary, this new treatment fits in that first category. Good thing, because HIV has this nasty tendency to mutate and become immune to any given drug after years and years of use. When that happens, the patient has no choice but to switch over to another combination of drugs, probably more expensive, and probably not as friendly to the body. If this "blood-derived" treatment adds to the list of patient-friendly treatments available, that's fantastic.
But the way I read this, it isn't the magic bullet "cure for AIDS" everyone is wishing for. It can slow down the progress of an infection, but reversing that progress is another matter altogether. Ditto for undoing damage to the immune system.
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
On the part of their parents, perhaps? You don't get choices when you're that age, you get things handed to you. If you manage to be born without contracting HIV from an HIV positive mother, which is pretty likely if you can score a c-section, but still possible for a natural birth, you can still catch it from breast milk.
I still think coming out of the body of someone who is HIV positive qualifies as "hard to get this disease", and "drinking the breast milk of an infected individual" is pretty high up there as well.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
is abstinence. Really, don't screw around until all HIV patients are dead. Hah, it is the ultimate cure, the only problem is implementing outside a public like Slashdot.
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I am not a scientist, but there is no guarantee that this particular strain of HIV can exist without that sugar molecule, or that evolution will occur fast enough to save the species. For example, this may be like removing oxygen from a human environment. Sure, we may one day evolve the ability to exist on another common chemical, but we could never do it in time, if a natural catastrophe should strike.
This could be an excellent argument for organizations trying to distribute AIDs drugs in third world nations (once they get their hands on this one), since the practice of curing only those who can afford it would simply allow the virus to exist long enough to evolve (if possible), whereas curing everybody could could make it go the way of polio and small-pox.
But, I reiterate. I am not a scientist, so the next person to read this may point out where I am wrong.
"Omnivore" and "predator" aren't mutually exclusive. Dogs have always been omnivores. Some wolves are omnivores. Coyotes are omnivores. Foxes are omnivores. They're all predators, and they like sweet foods. Bears are omnivores and predators. And they like sweet foods. Ferrets, on the other hand, are obligate carnivores and predators. And they like sweet foods too. Most cats don't taste sugar. But cats have a rather unique metabolism. Claiming "predators don't taste sugar" is a ridiculous and easily disproven generalization.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?