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Scientists Discover Antibody That Neutralizes 98% of HIV Strains (inquisitr.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Inquisitr: The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) announced this week that a "remarkable" breakthrough has been made in the study of preventing and treating the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that leads to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), according to a press release posted on the agency's official website. The breakthrough centers around the discovery of a powerful antibody named N6 that is highly effective in both binding to the surface of the HIV virus and neutralizing it. The former has proved elusive in the past. "Identifying broadly neutralizing antibodies against HIV has been difficult because the virus rapidly changes its surface proteins to evade recognition by the immune system," the press release explains. The antibody was initially discovered in an HIV-positive person and has since proven to potentially neutralize 98 percent of HIV isolates, "including 16 of 20 strains resistant to other antibodies of the same class," according to the press release. Researchers have had previous success with other antibodies, but N6 appears to be more effective. The new discovery has potential benefits far beyond preventing and treating HIV as well. Studying exactly how N6 works could potentially lead to breakthroughs in other anti-viral antibodies. "Findings from the current study showed that N6 evolved a unique mode of binding that depends less on a variable area of the HIV envelope known as the V5 region and focuses more on conserved regions, which change relatively little among HIV strains," NIAID explains. "This allows N6 to tolerate changes in the HIV envelope, including the attachment of sugars in the V5 region, a major mechanism by which HIV develops resistance to other VRC01-class antibodies. Due to its potency, N6 may offer stronger and more durable prevention and treatment benefits, and researchers may be able to administer it subcutaneously (into the fat under the skin) rather than intravenously. In addition, its ability to neutralize nearly all HIV strains would be advantageous for both prevention and treatment strategies."
One of my biggest academic regrets... no organic chem, no serious cellular biology. Such an exciting time in those fields these days.
Someone had to do it.
>"Identifying broadly neutralizing antibodies against HIV has been difficult because the virus rapidly changes" ... "since proven to potentially neutralize 98 percent of HIV isolates"
So the remaining 2% quickly change to be resistant and in a few years we are back where we started again? 98% sounds great for some things. But if you had 200 fleas and got rid of 396, those remaining 4 can potentially become 200 again pretty quickly.
So, they've found James Delmore Shapely. Took them a while longer than Gibson thought, but the good part (I guess) is that the Big Quake is still up there in the future.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The other day I said that BeauHD posts crap. I compared him to that AKB guy who used to post ridiculous diatribes about hosts files, becuase he was apparently unaware of why hosts files didn't work and had to be replaced by DNS.
Anyway, I talked shit about BeauHD's submissions, so it's only fair that I now acknowledge this is a very interesting story that does belong on Slashdot. Much better than some other submissions.
preposition ending. i know.
> preposition ending. i know.
Ending with a GRATUITOUS is bad. "Where is Bob at?" means exactly the same thing as "where is Bob?", so you shouldn't add "at" to the end, as it serves no purpose.
http://blog.oxforddictionaries...
Let me be the first (seriously, the first despite so many other assholes who already posted) to congratulate them on this discovery. Sadly, I'm quite sure this is not a cure since I don't see how it would affect infected cells, but at least it can prevent the spread both within the body and transmission to other people.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
It seems like we're exposed to some kind of "major breakthrough" every few months that never amounts to anything. Is this really what it appears to be, or is there some "that's all great, but..." part that people who aren't biochemist/medical professionals are missing? I'd really like to hear from people with actual medical training on this one instead of people who read three wikipedia articles and now think they know kung-fu.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Where Bob at?
Why bother with the gratuitous "is"?
You are welcome on my lawn.
But I did not read that they have figured out how to cause a person to produce this antibody. In fact, the article talked about infusing people with antibodies, but not about some vaccine that might cause people to produce the antibodies themselves. I expect that this is being pursued. Until that pursuit yields results, I don't know that this discovery will be able to counterbalance risky behavior very much.
Once there was a man who painted a new sign for his store: "Fresh Fish for Sale"
His friend came along, saw what he was doing, and said, "Of course they're fresh, what kind of jerk sells unfresh fish?"
The man decided he was right, and crossed out the word fish.
The friend thought a bit and said, "Well........why say for sale? Why would you have fish in your store if they're not for sale?"
So,,,,,,,,,the man crossed off the words 'for sale,' becoming more efficient.
Then his friend thought some more, and said, "Ya know, everyone can tell they're fish, we can smell them from a block away."
The man crossed off the word fish, thankful he had such a wise friend.
Words are redundant, as can be proven by this following paragraph:
.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Well not exactly.
The discovery of an antibody that targets a non-variable site is important in several ways. I'm not sure how good a therapeutic drug it will make. Antibodies are huge and hard to make so depending on the dose required it could be prohibitive to inject enough of the stuff in an active form to do any good. Massive proteins often are lousy drugs. THat's not to say that antibodies can't be used as drugs. There's a lot that are on the market now, for example Humira. But that's going after receptors in the host not viruses so it's a different regime.
But what is good about this is three things. You learn where you can bind on the virus, you learn the binding mode of the contact points, and finally you learn that that binding mode is protective across most HIV. It's not uncommon to have something that binds HIV well but fails to be protective. Given this structural knowledge one can now try to design either small molecules or other smaller proteins than an anti-body that bind in a similar manner and target either the same binding site or the same origins of protection.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Corrected headline:
"Persons Immune System Discovers Antibody That Neutralizes 98% of HIV Strains; Scientists Take Credit"
Betting pool on how long it takes to patent, and who gets the patent, starts now...
Oh look, a Nevada desert conspiracy guy. Just the type I was using as an example the other day in the thread on anti-science attitudes.
The fda will see to that. Too much money lost by the medical profession
In only a few more weeks, the FDA will no longer be controlled by the Democrat/Republican party donor base. Things are about to get interesting.
Your man redundantly crossed out fish twice. (yeah, I guess I could have left out redundantly)
I recognised the nouns, verbs and prepositions are in sentence structure.
The actual meaning of what you wrote still eludes me.
Hope so, they are stealing american jobs: J Huang, BH Kang, E Ishida, T Zhou et al.
You should increase the voltage on your treatments.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Devin Waller
Nov 1
to me
Hi,
Thank you for your interest in the California Science Center and your generous donation offer. It seems that your grandfather’s drafting set has a rich history and will be an ideal artifact for static display for the appropriate museum. We appreciate your consideration of the Science Center as a donor organization. However, we are simply not able to accept this item at this time. I’d like to recommend that you contact Cindy Macha, President of the Western Museum of Flight in Torrance (http://www.wmof.com/) or Professor William Deverell, Director of the Huntington-USC Institute (http://dornsife.usc.edu/icw).
Kind regards,
Devin
Devin Waller | Exhibit Project Manager
Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center
California Science Center
700 Exposition Park Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90037
O: (213) 744-7448
C: (310) 975-5400
dwaller@cscmail.org
CaliforniaScienceCenter.org
Please consider the environment before printing this email.
William Francis Deverell
Nov 14
to me
Thanks Mr. Hoenig – the Huntington very rarely takes on material artifacts like these, as interesting as they are – perhaps Cindy Macha will be in touch with her thoughts, too.
Best regards,
Bill Deverell
You should increase the voltage on your treatments.
There are just 5 things I care about in the Lake Tahoe basin: Water, lumber, uranium, gold and silver, and the local Sheriff's office (EDSO) has been made fully aware of that. What are they going to do? Take the Pentagon's guns away? Big pharma cartel style sales of pills for depression, paranoid schitz, or psychosis of unknown origin to the Pentagon? I'd love to see that. I don't fit any of the above diagnosis, however might I suggest writing out a diagnosis of "Really f*cking pist, is talking, and has a bat shit crazy hardon for every natural resource in the Tahoe basin, and can get at every one of them".
Oh, that's the kind of thing geniuses do.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."