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Doctors Will Test Gene Editing On HIV Patients
Soychemist writes "Some people have a mutation that makes them highly resistant to HIV, and scientists think that they can give that immunity to anyone with a new type of gene therapy. The first human trials will start at the University of Pennsylvania this week. Researchers will draw blood from people with drug-resistant HIV, clip the CCR5 gene out of their T-cells with a nuclease enzyme, grow the modified cells in a dish, and then return 10 billion of them to the patient's bloodstream. Those cells will be immune to the virus, and they will keep the patient's T-cell count up even if the rest are destroyed. 'We will see if it is safe and if those cells inhibit HIV replication in vivo,' said the lead researcher. 'We know they do in the test tube.'"
What's the worst that could happen, they screw it up and you die?
This day has finally come.
now I can go back to having anonymous sex at the local sexatorium. Mmmm glory holes....
What might modifying your DNA actually cost, efficiencies of a mature process taken into consideration?
Wait! Let me grab my gardening scissors to cut that gene out, oh.. we actually need proper medical equipment? I thought we're talking about HIV here.
I guess they didn't have sex ed when you were in school.
You don't say.
Hopefully the researchers are successful in their endeavours but you've got to wonder about the costs associated with such a procedure. With something like a 33 million estimated people infected with HIV world-wide I wonder what percentage would actually be able to afford treatment :/
'We will see if it is safe and if those cells inhibit HIV replication in vivo,'
Alas, poor Vivo. I knew him, Horatio.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Every time someone posts about HIV we get a jackass like you. There are people who have HIV and didnt contract it through sex or drugs.
There are people who were born HIV+ because their mother was a carrier, there are people who have been raped and now carry the virus, there are people in the medical field that contract it because some drug addict freaks out while they tend to them. Hell, even though we test blood now many people contracted it through blood transfusions before they tested it.
Oh and by the way. Condoms don't give 100% protection against HIV its about 80-85%.
HIV is a bastard of a virus. Our immune systems can usually handle most viruses without intervention. You cant win on your own against HIV. It will destroy the immune system eventually.
If this treatment is successful at this level. At least we can give life to those who didn't have the choice.
While strides have been made in HIV treatment, it's still a death sentence. Doctors can keep the patient alive longer, but they can't prevent the inevitable.
With so many people in the developing world suffering from HIV, it would be nice to see something like this fast tracked. I am sure that some of those folks, now intimately familiar with their own mortality, would be eager to participate knowing that they could potentially help other people.
Let's not besmirch the guy's education. I'm sure they had sex-ed when he was in school, but you know how it is - if you never make use of something you soon forget it.
You *know* there's going to be an Emacs mode for gene editing.
I'm (pretty) sure it's not like it sounds, but the idea of gene editing immediately conjures up something like a gene Wikipedia in 50 years or something, and that's terrifying and hilarious at the same time.
The test subjects have drug resistant HIV.
Tyrell: The facts of life. To make an alteration in the evolvment of an organic life system is fatal. A coding sequence cannot be revised once it's been established.
Roy: Why not?
Tyrell: Because by the second day of incubation, any cells that have undergone reversion mutations give rise to revertant colonies like rats leaving a sinking ship. Then the ship sinks.
Roy: What about EMS recombination.
Tyrell: We've already tried it. Ethyl methane sulfonate as an alkylating agent a potent mutagen It created a virus so lethal the subject was dead before he left the table.
Roy: Then a repressive protein that blocks the operating cells.
Tyrell: Wouldn't obstruct replication, but it does give rise to an error in replication so that the newly formed DNA strand carries the mutation and you've got a virus again. But, uh, this-- all of this is academic. You were made as well as we could make you.
copied from here BTW
http://michaelsmith.id.au
There are 3 big risks / problems I see with this approach:
#1: The modified T-Cells attack the host after they are reintroduced. Think of it like auto-immune disease or transplanted-organ rejection. This could cause effects ranging from a mild food allergy to death. Anyone know how much damage 10 billion rogue T-cells could do? I sure don't; however, I do know that they aren't a straight 1 T-Cell used up for each 1 antigen.
#2: Unmodified T-cells attack the modified T-Cells because the surface of the modified T-Cells (i.e. the CCR5 protein) could possibly trigger an immune response. This would render the modified T-Cells kind of pointless. Seems like this would have better chance of working on patients with full blown AIDS rather than merely HIV+.
3: Modified T-Cells survive and are unaffected by HIV; however, these surviving modified T-Cells are just clones of the one original T-Cell that the lab modified. So in essence, you have injected the test subject with 10 billion of the same T-Cell. Unless the doctors have a way of massaging the genes on a representative sample of T-Cells, then this is kind of useless to the patient. What good are 10 billion T-Cells if they are each only good for tagging one antigen? Meaning, that the 10 billion T cells could only respond to a single stimulus, i.e. they could all only fight one strain of the common cold, but not anything else.
Disclaimer: I have a BA in bio from a public ivy; however, my GPA wasn't that great, and I didn't pursue a career in the field. I very well could be overlooking something substantial in immunology etc.
Alas, I have enough biology to have questions not answered in the short article, but not enough to extract the answers from the referenced paper. (I did notice that the news article was slightly incorrect on one point. They are not actually 'clipping out' the CCR5 gene. They cause a break in the gene which gets imperfectly repaired, so that the gene becomes nonfunctional.)
Are these T cells capable of 'reproducing' and having an unlimited number of descendants? This is not the case for many types of cells - it is part of what makes stem cells special. The paper refers to T4 cell lines, which suggests that they can indefinitely reproduce.
If the treatment works, how long will it last? (If the answer to the previous question is 'no', the answer to this one will likely be be 'about as long as the lifetime of a T cell.' If the answer to the previous question is 'yes', the answer might be 'for a lifetime.'
Do the modified T cells have to come from the patient? If not, the treatment will be much cheaper: Do the extraction and genetic modification once, breed up a big batch, treat dozens of patients. If not, you need to do the genetic modification once for each patient.
Once you have a bunch of immune T cells, will they be able to eliminate HIV from the body? (I suspect not: I understand that as a retrovirus, HIV is very good at hiding dormant for a long while.)
The answers to these questions are the difference between this being a laboratory curiosity and this being the elimination of HIV in developed countries within 5 years.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Hmm. Uncontrolled cell reproduction after the T-cells are replaced? In other words, cancer. Anybody know what happens to a person when they have too many T-cells? Do you become super immune to everything? How can you get rid of t-cells quickly if you have to?
The HIV virus has a high rate of mutation, one of the reasons it sticks around in your body and your immune system has to keep attacking it, it's pretty much a "new" virus every time. What's to keep the virus from mutating and avoiding the CCR5 requirement it currently has? CCR5 doesn't seem to be a requirement for a normal human immune system (one of the many types of backups the immune system has), thus some percentage of the population being perfectly healthy without that receptor. I'd even go as far as to say that if HIV mutates into not requiring CCR5, then this new strain could spread and theoretically be worse than the current HIV strain in the wild.
Is that HIV mutates *very* rapidly. This is why patients on HIV drugs (AZT and the like) need to constantly change treatments and sometimes take medication vacations - otherwise they get a drug-resistant strain.
That's not to make light of this discovery. It will definitely improve the quality of life for a few patients for a while, and that is a very good thing. Is it a cure for AIDS? Only time will tell.
Unprotected sex with an HIV positive partner hs an infection rate of only about 1 in 2000. Throw a condom into that mix and you are pretty much good to go.
There is an argument that AIDS can be thought of as a symptom of severe selenium deficiency that has been triggered by the HIV virus. A recently retired geography prof, Harry Foster, has been doing some interesting work on the subject (his website is at www.hdfoster.com). The summary is: a few brazil nuts a day is a good thing for your immune system, if you aren't allergic to them.
I've always tended to get really nasty colds, a couple a year. Since I started chowing down on the brazil nuts 10 months ago, I've been pretty much free of them. Just don't eat too many (two a day is safe), or you risk selenium poisoning.
Ask him.
I only wish I had the mod points to give you for this one. However, there are is still a fairly wide variety of viruses that we aren't equiped to handle without vaccinations and the like, but all in all HIV is definitely a hell of a bastard. It stuns me to see the level of ignorance displayed regarding HIV at times. The treatment Ryan White recieved before his death was reprehensible due to ignorant shits. Testing of blood transfusions before that were basically unheard of. To this day I don't know if I am more disgusted by the homophobic bullshit or the mind boggling scientific ignorance that lead to the treatment he recieved.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
HIV is a bastard of a virus. Our immune systems can usually handle most viruses without intervention. You cant win on your own against HIV. It will destroy the immune system eventually.
HIV is a bastard because it's relatively benign and very hard to transmit. A normal deadly virus like Ebola kills you quickly, HIV keeps you healthy and able to infect others for years. It's mainly transferred by sex, which is a big bummer for all of us who like to sleep around which includes lots of gay men.
But once you have it, you won't get rid of it. Nothing special either, because most people live with the chicken pox virus for most of their lives. That usually doesn't kill you, though...
X.
Instead of just making the typical /. armchair commentary about the zillion ways in which this proposal would be foolish or at best useless, I'm going to give a different angle on this.
First, on a global scale, the most sophisticated HIV treatments are administered to the relatively wealthy. Only when such a treatment is deemed effective does it start to spread down to the poor, due to economics. The old anti-retrovirals of yesterday are today's low-cost options for the millions of HIV+ individuals in developing nations. That's just the reality of the technological development of disease treatment. However, this "trickle-down" mechanism, combined with natural geographic and genetic variations, has led to the evolutionary branching of HIV into significantly distinct strains, with characteristically different disease modalities.
Second, we have as yet no drug that is able to eliminate HIV in the body. The currently available treatments are at best able to turn HIV into a chronic, managed condition. This has some very interesting (some would say alarming) socioeconomic implications. What we are finding is that over time, HAART therapy has evolved from a multiple-dose-per-day regimen that was difficult to maintain, to a more easily managed schedule, leading to better therapy adherence in patients. However, some of these drugs are poorly tolerated in many individuals, and over time, HIV is known to develop multiple resistances due to poor adherence or tolerance. The more disturbing situation, however, is that in many gay communities, the practice of "pre-exposure prophylaxis" has become alarmingly common. What is happening is that some HIV- gay men are obtaining anti-HIV drugs and taking them prior to knowingly exposing themselves to potentially HIV+ individuals through unprotected sex.
From a scientific standpoint, it is fascinating that this development is as successful as it has been. But from the standpoint of a gay man who takes every precaution to educate myself and follow safer sex practices and does everything in my power to serve as a role model for responsible behavior, I find it totally abhorrent that there are guys who expose themselves willingly to HIV in such an unethical manner, in light of all the AIDS deaths that have come before us and all the tireless work of our most brilliant scientists, medical care providers, and public health advocates. They have even given this "PrEP" cute names and euphemisms to disguise the utter insanity of what they are really doing (like they have done with the term "barebacking" to refer to unprotected anal intercourse). If there is anyone on the face of this earth that deserves to die of this terrible disease, it is them. And I don't say that lightly. Some of you might say that these people would have had unprotected sex with or without the drugs, but you have to realize that it is partly through the action of these individuals that drug-resistant HIV is spread. It is for this reason I dare stand in judgment against them.
So this brings me to my third point. The CCR5 discovery is notable in that it confers strong resistance against HIV-1. Two copies of the gene are required for this resistance. However, the transmission of other strains of HIV may not be blocked by the presence of this gene. Even if this therapy were to work, I doubt it would be effective on a large scale. Some of these patients, if you cure them, will simply go out and have more unprotected sex. If you don't believe me, reread the previous paragraph.
The only way human civilization will ever rid itself of the scourge of HIV is if we discover a vaccine or outright cure for all its strains. No chronic management or piecemeal therapy will be sufficient, because there are always people who will do things that will enable the virus to mutate and survive. Ever since the discovery and announcement of the virus in the 80s, this simple fact was apparent to me. But the untold billions of dollars in revenue that HIV research and managemen
Now if only they could have this therapy cure herpes patients.
I don't mean to be a pessimist, but it seems that this will, if approved, be a lengthy and costly procedure.
I'm unaware of the types of legal wrangling for a doctor and a hospital before a procedure is taken. I'm also unaware if there are any ethics reviews done prior to risky operations/treatments (brian, heart, gene therapy). Given at least the legal risks, unless there's a 99.999% success rate, I'm not sure doctors or hospitals will want the procedure in-use (even if the person is likely to die of HIV/AIDS anyways).
Since there's also process patents, I'm concerned a Pharmaceutical might buy the 'rights' to the procedure. If said Pharma already sells HIV/AIDS drugs, the price for this procedure will be very costly. I'm not sure some celebrity victims would be able to afford it.
I'm just hopeful that this is a path to the magic-bullet. This is a devastating virus that has afflicted many countries and urban populations.
So these HIV patients will simultaneously be hosting HIV in CCR5wt cells providing a steady stream mutant HIV particles to try their luck at cracking CCR5null T cells.
Hopefully CCR5null is a real deal breaker for HIV or we might be creating the perfect situation for HIV to maximize its chances of overcoming that hurdle.
Actually they did. And, they told us not to shoot up meth and go on all-night-long no-condom buttfucking sprees.
But the big majority of people with HIV in the developed world have it because they are stupid. Avoid shooting up and receptive anal intercourse and you've dramatically cut your chances. Insist on only doing the nasty with clean partners in safe ways and you're very safe. Keep your dick dry, your asshole closed and don't shoot up and your chances of getting HIV are pretty much 0.
I like my beverages with warning labels!
I just said zinc fingers were common DNA landmarks. That's completely wrong.
Apologies in advance.
I should add that this isn't a reason not to pursue research for cures for HIV. It's a very interesting problem and this technique may have broad application if it works. Also in some parts of the world HIV is very common and hard to avoid.
Just as we would treat a heart attack in a 400 lb man, so we should also treat someone with HIV as best we can.
I like my beverages with warning labels!
He's not the only one.
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
Will there be an Undo button?
There are people who have HIV and didnt contract it through sex or drugs.
There are people who were born HIV+ because their mother was a carrier, there are people who have been raped and now carry the virus
Does not compute.
There are people who were born HIV+ because their mother was a carrier, there are people who have been raped and now carry the virus, there are people in the medical field that contract it because some drug addict freaks out while they tend to them. Hell, even though we test blood now many people contracted it through blood transfusions before they tested it.
Care to back this up with anything? Although I agree with you 100% in spirit and i don't doubt that it HAS happened more than once, how about sticking to facts instead of what comes off as even more alarmist than a Fox News story on people sticking razor blades in Halloween candy? Or is "getting needle stabbed by a crazed junkie" now the most likely way one will contract the disease?
why doesn't the patients own immune system fight the modified gene?
Why UNIX?
"I'd like darker skin and, uh... healthy eyes? The latter is kinda more important, so if I can have only one, then that should be it.
On the other hand, if you give discounts for multiple edits, then why not. Throw in a large-penis-gene, too. I hear that's all the rage, these days."
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Isn't this how a horde of ravenous mutant humans/zombies were unleashed to the world in the movie version of I Am Legend?
Oh well, I have every confidence that Will Sm
Contrary to popular oppinion, London is not burning. It is, in fact, quite nippy.
Here comes the zombie apocalypse :(
Hate to burst the bubble, but the HIV virus is one of the fastest to mutate, which is one of the reasons the body finds it hard to fight it. How can you fight what you cant see?
No movie quotes please.
I want it on the record here that I (as a biochemist) predict that the virus will mutate around the resistance genes within a few years. Too long to get the resistance to everybody.
Valtrex only goes so far.
Indeed. They seem to be trying to modify CCR5 to be CCR5 delta 32, which is the variant which is less prone to HIV (but not immune). The nonfunctional aspect is very important, as you wouldn't want to simply engineer a foetus to have this gene instead of normal CCR5 genes. From wikipedia:
There's a myth going around africa, or at least some of the countries in africa (and having found a link it appears a lot more than just africa) that sex with a virgin will cure AIDs... As a result of this there are many many young women who have been raped by an AIDs suffered who have subsequently contracted the disease.
Does compute perfectly, just because it hasn't happened to you does not mean it hasn't happened.
http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2002/april/virgin.htm
Well, Let's assume that the treatment is effective and people start having undetectable levels of HIV.
This is for one side, good for the infected person, because can have a "healthy" life.
BUT, this implies that many (and I mean many) will think they are cured and will have unprotected sex, and even if the person with which they are asks them for a blood test before starting unprotected sex, HIV would be undetectable.
So, we will have even more infected people in this world.
It is not that I'm a jerk, but have a different point of view, social instead of having pity for one person. Yes, I know many of HIV+ had it because of an accident, mother-baby transmission, a doctor helping....
We have been changing the interpretation of Darwin's Law and this is taking us to an era where the fittest is not necessary the better genes, the healthier or anything like that.
I think that if you got cirrhosis because you are a F#### drunk, or got AIDS because you have unprotected promiscuous sex, or got lung cancer because you smoke, or whatever that is your fault, then, you deserve to die (and please die fast so you can not spread your tragedy to the world, and here is where HIV f### it up), instead of spending resources in you that could be better used for children education, research, or anything else.
Not only that, it hast social implications, if we cure every as#%01e, that means that you can do whatever you want and we then take care of you, you will do it again, and the other that see that also will do s#it, just because, "others will fix me later", "F#%k the others". It is expensive not only in economic terms, but also in social terms.
"Doctors Will Test Gene Editing On HIV Patents "
...yeah, it's off-topic, but that's how I read it at first glance...
Seriously, you can blame the victims of the disease all you like, at the end of the day the virus will spread if measures are not taken, and we are all better of by offering infected individuals treatment, no matter how stupid they were when they got infected.
This is just all not true and its really just buzzwords for doing the "right thing." The social interest that you advocate protecting is not public health but overall freedom. If we really wanted to do what is best for the public health, we would provide some modicum of public treatment for HIV and other chronic communicable diseases as an inducement to getting patients on board. Then, you mark them as infected both on their body and on an online database, so that you effectively quarantine them. Then they die and that's the end of the disease.
What you are advocating is that society actually accept that some additional members of it will be infected and will be killed, in order to protect the rights of those who are already infected. What's really happening when people shout compassion and what not, and what about the rights of the disease carriers, is that, they are accepting that their decision will cause innocent people to be killed but it is a worthwhile trade for a greater good of freedom, because most disease carriers, once they know they have it, won't spread the disease, any more than most gun owners won't go shooting up a mall.
So quit talking about this stupid ad-hominem attack of "well, blame the victim and all of these poor people and you have no soul..". Just be honest and say, yeah, I think more people will die from my health policies but it is better to have a free society than a police state.
This is my sig.
vi or emacs?
We also get turd burlger like you who wants to ignore the 99% of AIDS that's caused by buttfucking and shooting up to focus on the few people who got AIDS second hand from someone that buttfucked or shot up. Sorry fag, but for most people, AIDS is a lifestyle choice.
against this, claiming it will remove the 'moral hazard' from sex, just like they argued against the HPV vaccine that prevents cervical cancer.
conservative lunatics are why we can't have nice things.
I guess after this they can get to work on the *important* things. Like giving us wings, tails, claws, snake-slit eyes and other mostly cosmetic features...
I feel kinda sorry for the HIV Patients they are using as Guinea pigs though.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
Ummmm.....
If you don't think the extra 3% is worth $100 a month then
BUY THE GENERIC
Having an approved drug is not a license to print money! You still have to sell the thing. When you actually look at the history of pharma companies, this sort of name brand extension only works for about 5 years unless you have a trully novel improvment.
They probably spent about 300-500 million to get that new drug...I know it didn't work because prilosec and its generics are all OTC now. The company failed at maintaining market dominance and lost probably around half a BILLION because of it.
HIV is an excellent subject for studying cellular processes. The virus is only 9 proteins, and yet look what it can accomplish. Many discoveries about cellular processes have come to researchers who were studying HIV to learn more about the virus.
Maybe somebody ought to make it happen to him.
What if, instead of making the body more resistant to HIV infection, we take the track of forcing HIV to mutate into a non-viable form in vivo? Surely, there has to be some genetic sequence that says "Hey, I'm HIV and not soemthing else." Why not then tailor a genetic enzyme (or some such) to endemically locate anything with the proper genetic markers, alter those cells so infected, and grant not immunity but rather elimination? Or would that just not work?
I'm just wondering, I have no bio degree but always thought if we took a different track we might be more successful. Ideas, anyone?
It's really important, so I'll take the time to reply to this troll.
AIDS is rampant among all sexual preferences, barring abstinence.
Some people are even born with it.
You really need to grow up.
Nice photographs, BTW.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Actually they did. And, they told us not to shoot up meth and go on all-night-long no-condom buttfucking sprees.
Really? They didn't teach me that in sex ed. But I did learn to put a condom on a banana!
Whatever editor they choose, if it is not going to respect my .emacs file and my special key bindings and macros, I am not interested.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
the problem with that of course is it the basis for many a scifi movie; direct genetic manipulation resulting in a number of box office scenarios: - mass death (pick one...) - zombies (Resident Evil - the t-cell accident; was supposed to be a cure) - intentional mutation (Xmen 2 - the guy that made wolverine) - super soldiers (Super Soldier - the movies part 1 and 2, captain america) - Battlestar galactica (skin jobs and pro-creation attempts) - mutegenics wars - lots of super soldiers (Star Trek - not to be confused with Khan who is a eugenic offspring) - replicants (Blade Runner - note the replicants learned how to do this themselves...) - serenity (reavers were gene mutated - with the best of intentions of course) - I am Legend (someone else mentioned it already) I am sure the list goes on.
Sangamo BioSciences Initiates Phase 1 Trial of CCR5-ZFP Therapeutic to Treat HIV/AIDS
RICHMOND, Calif., Feb 03, 2009 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ -- Therapeutic Approach Provides HIV ResistantImmune Cells
Sangamo BioSciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: SGMO) announced today that its collaborators at the University of Pennsylvania have opened a Phase 1 clinical trial to evaluate SB-728-T for the treatment of HIV/AIDS. Based on Sangamo's zinc finger DNA-binding protein nuclease (ZFN) technology, SB-728-T has been shown in an animal model of HIV infection to lead to an increase in CD4+ T-cell counts, a reduction in viral load and expansion of CCR5-modified T-cells, suggesting resistance to HIV.
"This is the first time that we have had the ability to make a patient's T-cells permanently resistant to infection by CCR5-specific strains of HIV and we are very excited to begin a clinical trial of this novel ZFN-based therapy," said Carl June, M.D., Director of Translational Research at the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. "The ability to protect immune cells from infection with HIV and the expansion of CCR5-modified T-cells has the
potential to provide long-term control of both the virus itself and eventually the opportunistic infections characteristic of AIDS."
CCR5 is a co-receptor that enables HIV to enter and infect cells of the immune system. About ten years ago, it was observed that individuals carrying a natural mutation of their CCR5 gene, CCR5-delta32, were highly resistant to infection by HIV. These individuals, lacking a functional CCR5 (approximately 1-2% of the general population), are immunologically "normal". A variety of small molecule and antibody antagonists of CCR5 binding have been tested and developed as potential therapeutic agents for the treatment of HIV infection. In addition, there is a recent report of a patient who had both HIV infection and leukemia and received a bone marrow transplant from a donor carrying the CCR5 mutation. After the successful bone marrow transplant, HIV treatment was discontinued and the virus could not be found in the circulating blood several months after the procedure.
Sangamo's ZFNs are designed to modify the DNA sequence encoding CCR5. This modification can occur directly in T-cells with only a brief exposure to the ZFNs. Once the modification is made to the T-cell's CCR5 gene it is permanently disrupted. "Our ZFN approach is very well-validated by naturally occurring mutations in man and the recent bone marrow transplant
report," commented Dale Ando, M.D., Sangamo's vice president of therapeutic development and chief medical officer. "However, allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (bone marrow taken from a different person) is not widely applicable as a therapeutic approach for HIV as it is a risky procedure requiring irradiation and ablation of the immune system and matched donors who also carry the CCR5-delta32 mutation are likely to be rare. Small molecule or antibody antagonists require the constant presence of a high concentration of drug in order to block therapeutically relevant numbers of the CCR5 protein. In contrast, we believe that our ZFN technology provides an approach that circumvents the dosing and potential toxicity issues of a systemic therapy and provides a simpler approach than a transplant. We specifically modify the patient's own CD4+ T cells, the principal target of HIV infection, with a one-time exposure of the cells to CCR5-specific ZFNs. This generates a population of T-cells that lack the CCR5 receptor, are resistant to HIV and can be infused back into the patient to provide a reservoir of HIV-resistant functional immune cells and, more importantly, may expand and provide an HIV immune response."
"Our ZFP technology functions at the DNA level and, as this application demonstrates, enables us to address highly validated therapeutic targets that have proven difficult to drug at the protein and RNA levels," commented
His point, I believe, is that rape (nonconsensual sex) is still sex. This is an accurate point; people who contract HIV by being raped contract it through sex. It isn't a flaw in your logic, but in the rigor with which you choose your terminology.
After a while HIV becomes resistant to the drugs. Now HIV can evolve to be resistant to the rare human immunity to it. Yay. Now nobody is safe.
...
The CCR5-32 mutation, which this article discusses, is present naturally in 5-14% of Europeans. If HIV could easily develop a resistance to it, it would have already.
CCR5 is not about antibodies. I'm one of the individuals with the homozygous (two copies) CCR5 Delta 32 mutation. It's a deletion mutation, meaning that I lack functional receptors HIV-1 binds to on the surface of my T-cells. My understanding is that except for theoretical strains of HIV that bind to the CXCR4 co-receptor, most of the strains prevalent in the wild will have no more effect on me than parvo virus.
That doesn't mean I get a free pass to be irresponsible, but it does mean that I stand a significantly reduced chance of contracting HIV through stupid behavior, that if smallpox ever breaks out I'll be really busy helping to heal the sick, that bubonic plague isn't too much of a problem for me either, but that West Nile can really screw me up.
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
Cancer is something you are either genetically prone towards or not..
That's really interesting. I saw one study that indicated a genetic link between smoking and lung cancer.
Yes you can try in do things in order to help increase the odds of preventing some types of sickness and illness, but in the end you really have no control, unless of course you have personally figured out how to correctly manipulate your own genetic structure.
That's the one argument that, in my mind, comes to mind when considering the case for national health insurance. I tend to be opposed to it on ideological grounds, but, the three arguments that sway me, are 1) that it simplifies economic integration with the EU and Japan 2) encourages the formation of small businesses and 3) the risks of various diseases are not so random as we might think.
As far as smoking warnings go, I remember that packs had the warnings that cigarette smoking was hazardous to your health as far back as the 1970s. I remember as a kid having classes going over, in the late 1970s all the way through h.s. in the 1980s, that smoking probably caused cancer, definitely caused emphysema, and was just all around bad for you. So, someone today, I think, in their 40-50s, ought to know that smoking is bad and should quit by now... but the thing is, I think the dirty secret is that its already too late, as you allude to.
This is my sig.
Is anyone else thinking that this can't go totally wrong?
Make a more dangerous HIV or some danger that we have not thought of (yet)?
Thank you for your well-intentioned and reasoned suggestion for stopping AIDS: encouraging people to not have sex.
Unfortunately, the empirical data after repeated trials of this technique is that it fails miserably.
You are welcome to try again. Some handy hints for the next round: try to focus on results rather than blame. The latter does not in fact improve anything.
sudo ergo sum
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