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Researchers Modify T-Cells, Make Them HIV Resistant
DieNadel writes to share that naturally occurring proteins called "zinc fingers" are being used in a new approach to AIDS treatment. Using modified T-Cells with the zinc fingers, researchers at the Pennsylvania School of Medicine have shown a reduction in viral load in mice. "'By inducing mutations in the CCR5 gene using zinc finger proteins, we've reduced the expression of CCR5 surface proteins on T cells, which is necessary for the AIDS virus to enter these immune system cells,' explains first author Elena Perez, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Penn. 'This approach stops the AIDS virus from entering the T cells because it now has an introduced error into the CCR5 gene.'"
Oh wait...T-cells. I thought it said T-Virus.
what *else* do these surface proteins on the T cell do?
maybe there is something those altered structures do that we will miss when they stop performing their function...
not everything in the body is superfluous like the appendix or wisdom teeth.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
The world is going to end in 2012 anyway so why worry.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
"Researchers Throw Finger at HIV"
This does not make the T-cell invisible to HIV, it sets a trap.
T Cell (in sexy voice): How about it, Mr. HIV, do you want to come into my place?
HIV: Om nom nom let me put my arms around you baby... wait, where the fuck do I put my left arm? I can't penetrate without both arms around you!
T cell: All your binding proteins are belong to me.
HIV: I'm going to go hit on someone else. Let go of my right arm, you bastard!
T cell: Om nom nom
Well ok, it's a stretch, the T cell doesn't eat the virus at the end.
But the zinc fingers don't disguise the T-cell, they keep the T-cell from expressing one of the antigens on its surface. So instead of the two binding sites needed for the T-cell to be infected, it only shows one.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
As opposed to what, being a good "con" and doing what?
Conning people?
Ignore this signature. By order.
Just because the Mayans calendar ended then means what exactly? They didn't even invent, let alone UTILIZE the wheel...
Not only that but they were able to predict "the end of the world" and yet utterly failed to foresee the end of their own civilization?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Just because the Mayans calendar ended then means what exactly? They didn't even invent, let alone UTILIZE the wheel...
Not only that but they were able to predict "the end of the world" and yet utterly failed to foresee the end of their own civilization?
This isn't actually true. The Mayan long count actually continues after 2012. The Mayans actually thought the world wouldn't end until sometime around 3000. The cause for the misinterpretation is in the way the Mayans wrote the date. There's a whole other digit that usually gets left out, because they saw no need to write the entire long count for things thousands of years in the future, but on a handful of totems you can actually see the entire long count for the end of the world date, and it's not until the 3000s, so we're good for a while.