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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.'"
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No radicals screaming "If we vaccinate everyone now, everyone will feel free to go and have promiscuous sex!"? I'm disappointed.
Obviously our bodies makes TRIM22 to fight against retroviruses already, and it's not good enough. I know that interferon, which activates TRIM22, was an early drug in the fight against HIV.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WXR-4KCGHS0-3&_user=18704&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000002018&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=18704&md5=f922f45405809276e69864f01d98ef4c
According to this study, TRIM22 is one of most ineffectual TRIM proteins.
That's nothing new to the industry - I was watching an old Horizon documentary from the 1980's on genetic research - one of the interviewed researched stated that "Every time there is a new discovery in genetic research, there is always the assumption that this is the final piece of the jigsaw put into place. Invariably this is proved to be not the case." There is always another receptor/gene/protein found that has a moderating effect on whatever interaction is being studied.
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You'd be a good person to ask this one of, then.... is there any truth to the theory that over time, humans will develop a natural immunity to HIV in the same way that cats have largely developped immunity to Feline Leukemia and FIV?
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
Well, I think you've hit the nail on the head. But consider this - your argument essentially boils down to saying that healthcare is a human right. And for those who are about to spew bile at me for saying that, please read the rest of the post.
Let's compare healthcare to food, for instance. In the civilized world, it's a nearly universal agreement, that people should have enough food to survive. Hence, the different forms of welfare programs, food stamps, etc... We provide people who are poor, with enough money or money equivalents, to obtain sufficient sustenance. We don't, however, provide them with 5-course chef-prepared meals every night.
The problem is, however, that people who flame the government and "corporations" for not providing medication for everyone, are essentially suggesting that we provide full healthcare for everyone... which equates to giving out filet mignon welfare, given the costs of many cutting edge drugs and treatments. Now I don't have a problem with the concept of this "filet mignon welfare"... except that I cannot personally afford it... and neither can you.
So as a society, we will at some point have to face the realization that we cannot provide the highest quality healthcare to every member of our society, no matter how hard we try. I wish I had the solution to this problem, but I do not. If I come up with one, I promise to share it with the world, as there is nothing more I'd like to see, than a world where the only diseases people die of, are ones for which cures and treatments haven't been discovered yet. But that's not a world of today, nor do I envision such a world in the near future.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
*sigh* he's saying that this is one thing we might change on the program. A patch for the human code, say.
... the program is stored in a few trillion copies (all of which need to be changed), of extremely complex molecules (which we can't reliable modify (we can't even reliably read them) even when we have only 1 outside of the body).
... "a bit" hard to get to the bits.
We only have a small problem
Let's say it's this way. We have a patch for a flaw in your windows. Except it's on paper. And the computers won't boot until the patch is applied, so we need to take out the hard drive and *manually* change the bits on it. We have an electron microscope that *sometimes* has been used to change some random bits on the harddrive, which has once or twice resulted in a "mostly" correct change. Oh yes, and we have a billion computers, all of which still need to be operational after the change.
That's where we are. We know what to change (or so we hope), it's just
1. CCR5 delta 32 is not super common, with a gene frequency of about .1 across Europe as a whole and maxing at about .23 in Ashkenaz jews. Evidence indicates that the black plague ceased to be common because of human resistance to it; which means that a gene frequency of .1 would not protect a whole population, which means it can't be the sole cause of surviving black plague.
.1 x .1 = .01 , so about 1% of European are immune to HIV as a result of CCR5 delta 32. In the context of 'today', this is almost completely insignificant.
2. You need two copies of CCR5 delta 32 for it to truly protect someone,
3. There is evidencethat bubonic plague could not produce the selective pressure necessary to spread CCR5 delta 32 widely, and smallpox is implicated instead.
No. TRIM5alpha has been in the news for quite some time. It's a gene carried by old world monkeys that prevent them from getting HIV. The human version of TRIM5alpha has a mutation which does not protect us from HIV but does protect us from other types of viruses (it's thought). There are experiments that show that TRIM5alpha prematurely disassembles the capsid cores of HIV particles as they are infecting cells. These cores contain the viral RNA as it is being made into viral DNA for insertion into the host cell genome.
So you can imagine the interest in TRIM genes and proteins. Just Pubmed TRIM5alpha and you'll see many articles. TRIM22 is probably a homologue of TRIM5alpha. The article does not seem to mention anything about TRIM5alpha probably because it makes it seem like their work has already been done. See below for the original finding:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14985764?ordinalpos=110&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
We already have the gene, we just need to make sure it gets turned on to stop our cells from make HIV and possibley other retroviruses
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Actually, German researchers have reported that DNA vaccines may be deliverable via a tattoo gun. Whether they use a plasmid or a virus of whatever sort (not that deadly really) to deliver the DNA is still another question, but doing it effectively on a rather large scale would become feasible with this technique.
You are totally right here, as it stands it would be nearly impossible to completely 'cure' someone with HIV. However, I think what might be more important is that we could potentially be able to treat human embryos while there are only a few cells that need changing. These changes would hopefully be carried through as they replicate.
I shouldn't have to point out the multitude of issues brought up by creating a new 'race' of humans that are immune to HIV; there are so many other things that could go wrong with slice-and-dicing the human genome that we probably won't see the tangible results of this early experiment for many, many years to come. Despite this, it is a reassuring step forward in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
Har?