Advance in conquering HIV/AIDS

[Scott]

This probably belongs in the Health forum, but may be of greater interest to the gay members:

New Drug 'Astonishingly Effective' Shield Against AIDS Virus in Monkeys

Scientists said Wednesday a new drug tested on monkeys provided an astonishingly effective shield against an animal version of the AIDS virus, a major gain in the quest for an HIV vaccine.

Macaque monkeys given the drug were able to fend off high, repeated doses of the simian version of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), they reported in the journal Nature.

https://www.yahoo.com/health/new-drug-astonishingly-effective-shield-against-111380313557.html

[SiSePuede419]

Funny, all the researchers are in America. I thought Thailand already discovered the cure for HIV?

Sadly, 50% of Thai people over the age of 15 seem to believe this propaganda. In a recent survey, 50% of Thai males felt no need to use a condom when having sex with STRANGERS.

OMG

[AyG]

Scientists said Wednesday a new drug tested on monkeys provided an astonishingly effective shield against an animal version of the AIDS virus, a major gain in the quest for an HIV vaccine.

This is exceptionally shoddy reporting. Just considering the first sentence:

• There is not such thing as "the AIDS virus". There is, however, the HIV virus, which comes in a variety of forms.
• The research is nothing to do with any "HIV vaccine". It's what's known as an "entry inhibitor" - it's an artificial antibody which blocks the HIV virus from entering the cell.

What the researchers have done is create a modified antibody which the free HIV virus latches onto permanently, so the virus is effectively is "mopped up" before it can enter the cell and replicate. They then took the gene encoding the modified antibody and inserted it into a virus which is then used to infect the host. The virus then goes on to produce the antibody.

Whilst this sounds like a significant advance, there are a few obvious issues:

(1) The modified antibody is in competition with the cell receptors for the HIV virus. Inevitably some cells will become infected.

(2) How long will the virus survive before the body's immune system recognises it as foreign?

(3) Given HIV's high mutability, and the genetic selection for versions of HIV which don't preferentially bind to the antibody, drug resistant strains of HIV will probably emerge quickly.

I'd also point out that this research doesn't appear to have been published in a peer reviewed journal, and one should always be skeptical of research findings released first to the press.

Edited February 20, 2015 by AyG

[SiSePuede419]

Scientists said Wednesday a new drug tested on monkeys provided an astonishingly effective shield against an animal version of the AIDS virus, a major gain in the quest for an HIV vaccine.

This is exceptionally shoddy reporting. Just considering the first sentence:

• There is not such thing as "the AIDS virus". There is, however, the HIV virus, which comes in a variety of forms.
• The research is nothing to do with any "HIV vaccine". It's what's known as an "entry inhibitor" - it's an artificial antibody which blocks the HIV virus from entering the cell.

What the researchers have done is create a modified antibody which the free HIV virus latches onto permanently, so the virus is effectively is "mopped up" before it can enter the cell and replicate. They then took the gene encoding the modified antibody and inserted it into a virus which is then used to infect the host. The virus then goes on to produce the antibody.

Whilst this sounds like a significant advance, there are a few obvious issues:

(1) The modified antibody is in competition with the cell receptors for the HIV virus. Inevitably some cells will become infected.

(2) How long will the virus survive before the body's immune system recognises it as foreign?

(3) Given HIV's high mutability, and the genetic selection for versions of HIV which don't preferentially bind to the antibody, drug resistant strains of HIV will probably emerge quickly.

I'd also point out that this research doesn't appear to have been published in a peer reviewed journal, and one should always be skeptical of research findings released first to the press.

This research:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature14264.html

Has been peer-reviewed:

http://www.nature.com/authors/policies/peer_review.htmlhtml

There's a reason why it's called "research"... it was only done on monkeys, not humans. There's enough differences between the monkey epigenome and immune system and the human epigenome and immune system to not guarantee the same results in human trials.

I can't comment on what you said, except making vaccines is extremely difficult. Still, there are humans in Africa with immune systems that can 100% handle HIV viruses with no symptoms of AIDS. Still, the human immune system is so complex, there's literally no way they can work backwards and figure out why.

You are correct, this may take decades of research, even if they're on the right path...