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Gene Therapy Approach 'Completely' Protects Mice From HIV Infection
Pierre Bezukhov writes "Scientists from the California Institute of Technology have come up with a gene therapy approach that has proven effective in protecting mice (with humanized immune systems) against HIV infections. They used a genetically altered virus to infect muscles cells and deliver DNA codes of potent antibodies isolated from the blood of human HIV victims (abstract). The muscle cells then began to manufacture the antibodies in quantities that proved 'completely protective' against HIV infection. By contrast, traditional vaccines have not worked against HIV, as scientists have failed to find a molecule that induces the immune system to produce enough potent antibodies. The difficulties stem from the fact that HIV disguises some of its external structures from the antibodies."
How do you conduct a proper trial for HIV? "Here, this is either a drug that will work, won't work, or a placebo which works a surprising amount of time. At best you have a 50/50 shot of getting HIV" Who is going to participate in that trial?
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Are you from 1982?
Most people who get AIDS today are young heterosexual females. They are not "fucking random strangers in the ass without protection."
AIDS is a disease that any sexually active person can get, even if they use protection. I don't sleep around a lot, but I have sex and unprotected oral sex. Why do you think my partners and I deserve to die? Because we are violating your personal moral code? Or because you are driven by resentment of your more sexually successful peers?
The thought that occurred to me was: if your muscle cells have had a coding sequence for an antibody injected into them, aren't they now engaging in effort that has nothing to do with their primary function? Wouldn't that impact things in old age? Wouldn't that increase the likelihood of heart problems, perhaps?
Then, one might think: why would you want to produce a boatload of HIV antibodies after your years of promiscuous sexual activity are over? Very few of us continue with that behavior ad infinitum.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
The article expresses a concern that once the gene therapy is started it can't be turned off if the person has an allergic reaction to the antibodies. Maybe somebody more informed can explain why:
1) You couldn't test for an allergic reaction in advance of the gene therapy.
2) You couldn't just do more gene therapy to turn off your original gene therapy.
This experiment will probably not produce an actual human drug, as it suffers from the same drawback as most previous gene-therapy studies: the Adenovirus transduction system will kill a significant number of patients. However, the results do seem to indicate that a monoclonal antibody has protective effects. The gene therapy vaccine may not work, but you could inject purified antibody into someone who had a known exposure, or is going to be in a high-risk situation, and prevent infection. Unfortunately, these types of therapies will never be able to cure an established infection, as HIV integrates its genome into host T-cells.
Jeez - and here I thought Slashdot to be a haven from this sort of nonsense. Seriously, you and your fellow 'Anonymous Coward's should have your human license revoked.
Zuki: Technical Tomfoolery
I love how you decided to keep this comment anonymous. 'It's as if' you are scared to actually back up your opinion. Seriously, in the 'playground' version of being a fag, you are the biggest one I've seen.
Gravity - 'It's as if nature doesn't think' humans should fly, but we do (planes).
Fun fact - nature isn't CONSCIOUS. It doesn't really give a crap what you think or do. Nature didn't wake up one day and think 'hey, I think I hate queers today!'. Unless you're religious, then of course why I even waste my breath is beyond me.
Zuki: Technical Tomfoolery
Unfortunately, the best ways to prevent HIV infection are not within the realm of what can reasonably be expected. People tend to have sex, to not be monogamous, and prefer not to discuss previous sexual partners. Condoms are highly effective but not perfect, and condoms substantially reduce the pleasure men feel while having sex (and I even know some women who do not like the feeling of a condom).
The reality is that a vaccine or cure for HIV is needed in order for the disease to be eradicated. There is no other way to solve this problem. You will never be able to convince millions (let alone billions) people to be monogamous and to wait until marriage.
Palm trees and 8
Maybe this is a silly, minor thing, but it bothers me these sort of blurbs always just talk about faceless "scientists." Does it really take that much work to find out who the principal researchers were? Maybe more people would be inspired to get into science if it actually seemed to come with some measure of face rather than anonymity in a lab coat.
So the goal of the adenovirus is to introduce the broadly neutralizing antibody into T cell lines. These are the immune cells that are going to be ultimately fighting HIV infection, but they lack the right antibodies. In the normal situation, your body raises antibodies, but they cannot bind to the right spot on the virus envelope. Instead, they bind to a spot that the virus naturally varies, and the virus escapes via mutation (i.e., mutated virus replicates, other virus doesn't). In the new situation, the adenovirus provides an antibody that is better, which binds a spot on Env that the virus needs (so virus with mutation at this spot replicate poorly).
... perhaps others could add key points.
So muscle and heart cells are likely not getting the vector, nor would they be expressing antibodies. Similarly, your body wont continue to raise the antibody if the infection is gone (it will not be ad infinitum).
This is my understanding
It can't be cited other than by checking every single scientific study in all of history and seeing that nonw of them proof that ADIS is caused by HIV.
it can be trivially disproved by showing the proof of course.
For that we basically have Koch's Postulates.
1. The germ must be found in every host with the disease
There have been cases of of AIDS like symptoms without HIV:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8093633
They are very rare though, and just because something that isn't influenza can cause flu like symptoms doesn't mean influenza doesn't cause the flu.
Essentially everyone with AIDS tests positive for HIV, and >99% of people without AIDS test negative for HIV.
2. The germ must be isolated from the host and grown in pure culture
This is done routinely .
3. The germ must cause the disease when introduced into a susceptible healthy host.
4. The germ must be re-isolated from the infected host
Ethics prevent us from doing these steps for things we think will kill you.
However, there have been a few lab accidents in which workers have been infected with HIV (cultured HIV, not just say blood from an AIDS patient getting into their bloodstream, which would carry more than just HIV). All of them showed T-cell depletion. And HIV was then isolated from them and matched the one they had been infected with exactly.
http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/MeetingAbstracts/ma?f=102203749.html
Plus the dozens of health care workers who have contracted AIDS from mistakes with HIV+ blood/etc - clearly not as good as isolated HIV infection for showing it is HIV, but more volume.
It would be sweet if AIDS were no longer a threat.
They day they announce the cure.....I'm guessing if you can't get laid that day...you're never gonna get laid.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
This is *great* news for gay mice. Ever try to put on one of those tiny little condoms without tearing it with your claws?
Now I can have unprotected sex with mice and not worry about getting AIDS
... in the United States.
That's where you go wrong: compared to southern Africa, where about 1 out of every 5 adults currently infected, the 50,000 per year in the US is almost negligible. And in that population, about 60% of all adults with HIV are women and girls.
source.
I am officially gone from
1) Most people getting infected with AIDS aren't in the United States. They are in Africa and other underdeveloped regions.
2) AIDS prevalence is not the same as the infection rate. The total AIDS prevalence is high among gay men for historical reasons. But young heterosexual women are now the most at risk demographic.