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Researchers Discover Gene That Blocks HIV
stemceller writes to tell us that a team of researchers at the University of Alberta claims to have discovered a gene capable of blocking HIV thereby preventing the onset of full blown AIDS. "Stephen Barr, a molecular virologist in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, says his team has identified a gene called TRIM22 that can block HIV infection in a cell culture by preventing the assembly of the virus. 'When we put this gene in cells, it prevents the assembly of the HIV virus," said Barr, a postdoctoral fellow. "This means the virus cannot get out of the cells to infect other cells, thereby blocking the spread of the virus.'"
Oh, I see. So making a vaccine which can help protect the 99.4% of humanity that is not infected is not nearly as exciting as a cure for the 0.6% of humanity living with HIV?
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
No one is understating the importance of a vaccine, and should one be developed it will be a day to celebrate. However, a cure would be more exciting.
Why ?
Because a cure will "save" the 0.6% of the population AND leave the remaining 99.4% of the population with the peace of mind of knowing that in the unfortunate event that they do contract HIV they are not completely fsck'd.
Of course the best scenario would be both a vaccine and a cure.
Believe me or not, but there /are/ things that are worse than death...
You've got an unstated assumption that you're not addressing: that scarce resources should be awarded to those with more resources. It's tempting to treat this as a given, since it's a premise of an unregulated market, but it's not a necessity.
If healthcare resources are so scarce that we are unable to effectively treat all members of society, then society must decide how to distribute those resources. As I stated above, it's not justice to award those scarce resources to only one class of people. In the original position, one would likely decide to allocate them either based on an attribute other than wealth, or more likely, allocate them in a random distribution (i.e., if there are two people with terminal cancer, and society can only afford to cure one of them, there's a coin flip).
I also wonder whether you've considered how much of that scarcity is based on scarcity of physical goods, labor, etc., and how much is artificial scarcity that could be changed by changing societal structure. For instance, if a pharmaceutical company can be compensated so that there is incentive to research new life-saving drugs, while amortizing the cost of said drugs over the whole population, rather than just on a small number of sufferers, it may no longer be the case that the sufferers are forced to compete for access to their medication.
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
You seem to have a misguided interpretation of the role and purpose of Slashdot...
Breakfast served all day!
The good part is that HIV attacks the white blood cells, i.e.: cells that aren't fixed in an organ, but that freely mobile in the blood stream and are produced by the bone marrow (which can also be injected freely in the blood stream and will home on its own to the bones).
So one possibility would be to :
- get some progenitor cells from the marrow
- do the recombination under laboratory controlled conditions using whatever methodology seems to be the best (not forced to use viruses that can still replicate other methods could be acceptable)
- select those progenitor cells where the recombination happened in the most optimal way (the new gene did got indeed inserted, and got inserted at a correct place where it won't cause cancer or otherwise disturb the function of gene that were present before the recombination)
- inject those modified cells into the patient bloodstream and let them go back to the bone marrow
- those celles produce a new generation of HIV-resistant lymphocytes.
As we are not forced to use virus inside a patient but can do the transformation under controlled conditions, and as we have a lot more knowledge about human genome, we might manage to diminish the risk of the transposons continuing to jump around and damage important genes (compared for example to what was found with Monsanto's GM corn).
Risks of rejection may be lowered compared to what happens with Cystic-fibrosis gene therapy, because :
- no virus inside the patient body and less foreign material : less likely to trigger a immune response.
- cells are only modified using the new gene, no other virus-cycle replicating proteins : less likely to be recognized as 'foreign'
- patient with an active AIDS are immuno-compromised anyway so the risk of immunological reject are lowered anyway.
Also, unlike other gene therapies, the effect of that one are very likely to be permanent because we have access to the progenitor cells that produce the lymphocytes. Whereas with CF gene therapy, the virus is inhaled and affects cells on the surface of the respiratory tract : mostly differentiated cells that won't divide anymore, once they are dead a new exposition to the virus is necessary to produce a new crop of modified cells, hence the risk of rejection increase with each exposition. In CF, the progenitor cells aren't easily available.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Hi, you must be new here. Heck just saying "Bill Gates is the devil" is at least +1 insightful.
btw, Bill Gates is the devil.