Scientists Find A 'Weak Spot' In HIV That May Pave The Way To A Vaccine (futurism.com)
iONiUM quotes a report from Futurism: Research conducted by a team from the National Institutes of Health reported a new vulnerable site on HIV for vaccines to target. It is based on an antibody from the blood of an HIV-infected patient that binds with the virus and also prevents it from infecting a cell. A recent press release reports that a team of scientists led by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has discovered a new "weak spot" in HIV that vaccines can target. The area, called the fusion peptide, is a simple structure of eight amino acids that helps the virus fuse with a cell. According to the study, the team used a particularly powerful antibody, called VRC34.01, taken from the blood of an unnamed HIV-positive patient that caught the weak spot in the virus. It's not only capable of binding with the virus through the fusion peptide but also preventing it from infecting an entire cell.
Sweeeeet! Now Slashdot nerds can have no sex but without a condom!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Can someone explain to me: If the person has an antibody that prevents HIV from binding to a cell, how are they HIV positive?
They found an HIV-patient exhibiting an effective (to what degree is unclear from TFS) immune response to the HIV virus.
Let's give credit to the patient or the patient's immune system.
... is the patient whose body produced this antibody going to get a cut, or is it just the researchers and their organizations who will gain?
The story's been out for an hour, and nary a comment about how it makes no sense to cure when they can keep profiting from ongoing treatment. I don't know whether to be relieved or disappointed. (oooh.... did I just really use the word 'nary' in a sentence???)
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
After initial infection, the virus will enter a long-dormant period, during which it will continue to mutate and wear down the immune system. In most people, this period will end after a decade or so, when the immune system "tires" and allows viral load to increase. The destruction of CD4 helper cells (most by induced apoptosis, a small percentage by infection) opens the body to oprotunistic infection, which (barring treatment) is usually the end of the story.
A small group of the infected, called "Long Term Non-Progressors," are able to create highly-effective antibodies in their B-cells. When they do this, the viral load never increases, and they remain in the latency period indefinitely.
The antibodies produced by such people have been studied with X-ray crystalography. Their B-cells can actually be used in the "monoclonal antibody" process to create antibody solutions for other people that can be injected and used in treatment.
In any case, these highly-effective antibodies are only produced after years of interaction of the virus with the immune system. They are not presented upon initial infection, and LTNP individuals don't differ from the normal immune reaction during the first six months.
I think the most scary STD is hepatitis C. Cirrhosis is a very long, drawn out death.
Any idea how many children are born already infected with HIV? What sin did they commit?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Brec1 can actually cure people of HIV, by going into infected cells and removing the integrated provirus. I'm a software engineer, so I have no idea how this works, but it sounds more promising than this naturally-occurring antibody. Apparently BREC is evolved with a genetic algorithm; that part I understand.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
You're an idiot.
Vaccines do not cause learning disabilities. Asthma has increased in correlation but it's not causative - working in schools I can assure you that asthma and allergies are on the rise because of LACK OF EXPOSURE to things like grass, pollen, nuts, etc. No asthma in unvaccinated? Bollocks. Healthier? Bollocks. Disease resistance? Bollocks. Safety studies, stop making up criteria that they don't meet because that's BOLLOCKS.
The Dr you quote thought that Vitamin C cured lots of things that it doesn't. The guy published only in the 70's and 80's, things have moved on.
Though I'm not in the "YOU MUST HAVE YOUR CHILDREN VACCINATED OR YOU'RE EVIL AND KILLING THE WHOLE WORLD" camp, I disagree with almost everything you quoted here even more.
Vaccination, like ANY MEDICAL PROCEDURE, it not without statistical outliers, mistakes, and risks. Nothing medical is risk-free. 99.9999% of all medicine is working out if what you take and might end up with is better than what you already have. Drug interactions are difficult and people work differently.
Like the HIV story at the moment - a patient, of their own accord, formed an antibody that stopped HIV. Now scientists are taking that antibody and hopefully forming a vaccine or kinds. But HIV is different in every person and evolution relies on something, completely by chance, working differently in one animal to every other animal of the same species. That's how it works, and that's why vaccines cannot be "safe".
But, as a mathematician, the overwhelming, massively tested, calculated, verified and best odds are that vaccination will help an individual, and a population, more than they will harm it. Nobody can guarantee that for any individual, because we're playing biology roulette. But we're making sure we're playing on a table with only one tiny "you die" against a myriad "you never get the disease, or die from it" slots.
Stop being an idiot, Dr. M.D. PhD means nothing. Ask my geneticist girlfriend who's qualified to tell half of London if they have cancer, or if their unborn child is likely to have a crippling genetic disease or not and works with lots of wackos, or my multiple-Dr PhD father-in-law who has PhD's in everything from chemistry to physics to sports science. One wacko Dr doesn't make everything he said 30 years ago true just because he has letters on his name.
The overwhelming, peer-reviewed, best-guess of established science nowadays is that people should be vaccinated. And, in fact, one British doctor with a similar amount of letters was SO WRONG in his autism/vaccination link that he went to jail for it. Not just a slap on a wrist. Not just "Oh, his science is poor". But "Your assessment and scaremongering was so damn incorrect, and you knew it, and you faked results and made up numbers, and you went so public and scared so many people incorrectly, that it was criminal."
I can find a wacko PhD in any field, from astrophysics to maths (so many claimed to have proven Fermat's Last Theorem etc. and ALL of them were wrong until the 1990's and that took nearly 10 years to prove right even though it actually LOOKED right for a change), biology to environmental studies. A sound-bite from a wacko is not science.
I would think that if cells can not become infected that over time the virus might cease to exist within the body.
As long as it's not your ass, how's that your business?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
They're born with HIV. And they die of HIV. Before they're even old enough to think about fucking.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
But me and my hand are faithful to each other!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Some kids that overdid it with the tanning cream usually end up looking bright orange. Like this goofball.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
They chose the wrong parents. That's the same reason that all children of a religion different to your parent's religion will burn in the hell of your parent's religion - they too chose the wrong parents.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Remember, if you don't get out there and sin, then Jesus died for nothing!!!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Social Darwinist? Don't tell me, let me guess... you're a Trump supporter?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Funny, cause I could say the same about you as you haven't "won" a single argument with me.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Is it possible to talk behind your back when everything I type is available for all to see? You really are a paranoid schizophrenic aren't you? What's it like to be brain damaged APK? You should know since you have the most outwardly obvious brain damage, whereas I get people who are surprised when they find out I have mild Autism after knowing me for years.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Keep it up APK, it just shows how desperate you are. You aren't hurting my feelings, you aren't proving me wrong, you are just showing how much the petulant child you are.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?