Interestingly, it is linked directly to the ugly gene.

With this they probably could make a vaccine or genetically engineer a "virus" that could prevent AIDS*The disorder caused by the HIV virus*

Someone call Marvel Comics, we have some new X-men candidates.

Two women found with HIV-immune mutant gene
Wang Zhuoqiong
2004-10-01 05:17

SHENZHEN: Two women have been identified as carrying a mutant gene that is immune to HIV/AIDS, the first such cases uncovered in China, a researcher said.

The finding is the joint effort of a research programme, "Association of Human Genetic Polymorphisms with HIV Affections," jointly conducted by the University of Washington in the US State of Washington and local Infectious Disease Hospitals and medical institutions in Guangdong Province.

Tuofu Zhu, associate professor of University of Washington and associate director of the Clinical Core at the Centre for AIDS Research (CFAR), introduced the programme to China a year ago as a part of his global research in nations in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia.

"Before, such mutant genes were only found in Caucasians. The finding has encouraged us to do further research in China, with the aim of developing medicines to prevent and cure HIV/AIDS for different races,"said Zhu.

China is now at a key moment in adopting effective measures to control and prevent HIV/AIDS as the disease moves from high risk populations to the general population, in most cases though sexual transmission, Zhu pointed out.

Zhu said that setting up a research centre in Guangdong Province is appropriate as its population has made it the best platform for collecting diversified samples.

"With the largest mobile population in China, we can get samples from migrants who are from other parts of the country," said Zhu.

Since a greater number of patients infected with sexual transmitted disease in particular are reported in Guangdong Province, sample collections are more efficient than other regions in China, Zhu added.

So far, according to Zhu, his programme in Shenzhen has identified 11 Exposed Seronegatives (ES) since January.

Zhu explained that the immune systems of some individuals may be capable of resisting HIV infection. These individuals who do not appear to be infected with HIV despite multiple sexual encounters with HIV infected partners are referred to as exposed seronegatives (ES).

To be specific, any one who has conducted sexual activities at least twice weekly in four consecutive months with an HIV-infected partner might be identified as ES.

Of 11 ES cases, two cases have later been identified as carrying the mutant genes.

In Zhu's opinion, if medicine functioning similarly with the genes was put in the vagina and rectum, the HIV virus couldn't find its carrier to enter the human body and thus would be expelled.

In Shenzhen, both confirmed samples are women who have been exposed to HIV for many years but remained uninfected.

One of them, in her 40s, has kept a regular sexual life with her husband without any protection measures for nine years. Her husband, who was infected with the deadly virus by blood transfusion in 1994, was hospitalized in Shenzhen's Donghu Hospital in July last year.

However, due to the limited qualified samples, Zhu said it is still too early to draw any conclusion from the programme, adding "we definitely need more support from the local hospital, medical institutions and government to collect more data from ES people."

That would be a great pick up line. "Hey baby, want your kids to be immune?"

Well, we are a very capable species. We will not die off easily. Aids/HIV are dangerous and deadly to us. It was just a matter of time before our own bodies figured out how to survive this virus. We have a good package to work with.

Just my first thoughts on the subject. I would like to know more about the study.

Didn't they do this in William Gibson's "Virtual Light"? Yet another Gibson prophecy fulfilled.

If you RTFA you'll note:

"Before, such mutant genes were only found in Caucasians. The finding has encouraged us to do further research in China, with the aim of developing medicines to prevent and cure HIV/AIDS for different races," said Zhu

So it is NOT a new phenomenon.

HIV immunity has been reported in various sources in the past:

• a group of Kenyan prostitutes [bbc.co.uk] believed to be HIV immune but no longer
• the case of David Crohn [pbs.org] and others who lack secondary CCR5 (for macrophages) or CXCR4 (for T-cells) receptors and are thus resistant to HIV infection. NB: CCR5 and CXCR4 are believed to be secondary to the CD4 receptor, found on both cell types, in the HIV binding process.

The only novel thing about this discovery is that it was in Asians, vs. the Caucasian populations in which immunity had previously been reported (and I suppose African as well, even though the Kenyan prostitutes as referenced above turned out to not be immune). The article is pretty worthless, not even listing what the "mutant genes" are, but it's a pretty good guess that CCR5 and/or CXCR4 is involved.

How I was reflecting on Gibsons Virtual Light over my morning coffee this morning and now I hear about the mutant gene that practically fulfills Gibsons prophecy regarding the therapy.

Personally, I would undergo genetic therapy and have my chioldren (when/if I have them) undergo such a therapy if made available. I think this particular finding an excellent example of how far the field of genetics has gone and the promise it shows.
The flip side of course being the perils of falling into the Nazi idealism of creating a master race from a genetic template considered desirable.

Lots of people immune from STDs here.

Growing up, not too long into adolescence a friend of our family died of complications due to AIDS. I was barely 14 at the time and it struck me how dangerous AIDS really is. For years people used to think that my having no desire to fuck around like most of my peers was that I was gay. Then occassionally I'd let slip the story about our friend it just floored them. The scariest part is that they could have had HIV at the very moment they were thinking, after my telling that story, "but that can't happen to me."

What really struck me was that we saw the guy only about 3-4 months before he died. He was about as healthy as I am now at 21, and I workout on a regular basis. Then a few months later, *BOOM* dead of complication caused by AIDS. The scariest thing about the disease is that you can go without knowing you have it until the last minute.

I'm just glad to know SOMEONE will survive if this thing ever becomes airborne. LOL! Three Chinese chicks and a guy in Aboriginal Australia will recreate the human race. Boy, is our species in for a ride!

In communist China, you kill AIDS!

... in a different way. Check these "news" from July 2, 1998:

Geneva - Researchers have uncovered unusual behaviors of human immune systems that seem to have protected certain babies in Canada [aegis.com], prostitutes in Thailand [aegis.com] and Africa, and gay men in San Francisco from HIV, despite exposure to the AIDS virus.

The protections do not appear to be genetic, and may offer some critical clues to those hoping to make a vaccine against HIV.

At Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Dr. Kelly MacDonald and a team of pediatricians noticed something odd earlier this year: HIV-positive mothers did not pass the virus to babies who were born with immunologically incompatible blood. In cases of incompatibility, the mother has one genetic type of immune system markers, and the baby a different set. This can put the baby at risk of being attacked by the mother's immune system.

But, in the case of HIV-infected mothers, this immunological incompatibility saved the babies from HIV, MacDonald reported yesterday. The finding was based on a study of 111 mother / child pairs.

MacDonald believes that a key factor in the babies' genetic makeup - called A2/A6802 supertype - by fortunate coincidence prevents HIV from infecting the child. When the mother and child share the same genetic makeup in their immune system, MacDonald discovered, the child is 2.63 times more likely to get infected with HIV.

Since approximately 40 percent of the population worldwide has the A2/A6802 supertype, it makes it an attractive target for vaccine design, MacDonald said.

The U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied 280 prostitutes in Thailand who had worked in brothels for three years or more, and a group of non-prostitute Thai women. Not surprisingly, the prostitutes were far more likely to be infected with the virus, and 47 percent were HIV-positive, the CDC reported yesterday.

Remarkably, however, nine of the prostitutes were negative for HIV, even though they had genital herpes [aegis.com] and syphilis - clear indications of unsafe sexual behavior. The women did not have any of the genetic mutations that have been shown to protect some Caucasians from HIV. But they did apparently have complete immunity. Cells of their immune systems were killing every HIV to which they were exposed, the CDC team discovered. And laboratory studies revealed that their CD8 T-cells, a type of white blood cell, were secreting a factor which, when mixed in a petri dish with human cells and HIV, stimulated immune cells to destroy the virus.

Dr. Jay Levy of the University of California in San Francisco has presented evidence of a CD8-produced factor that stops HIV, as well. For years he has tried to isolate the mysterious substance, to no avail. But it could result, he said in a speech, in a way to maintain control of the virus without the need for antiviral drugs.

Sharon Stranford, a researcher in Levy's laboratory, examined the immune system cells of gay San Francisco men who have been exposed repeatedly to HIV and never become infected. She said that the CD8 cells in these men make a mysterious factor that protects against HIV. But it is not the same as the one discovered in Thai prostitutes, Stranford said, because it blocks HIV without prompting immune system cells to kill the virus. It works by blocking the ability of HIV to make copies of itself, Levy said.

Finally, a CDC team working in Abijan, Ivory Coast [aegis.com], has also found a group of uninfected prostitutes. They, too, lack any genetic protection. And their ability to fight off HIV is also immunological. The team hasn't yet worked out the details, researchers said, but it is clear that immune system cells in the African prostitutes are highly activated, as if constantly ready to go to war.

First, it's been know for ages, so it's not a new mutation.

The specific 'mutation' involve CCR5, a coreceptor of HIV-1. An uncommun deletion called CCR5delta32 make it so that M-tropic HIV-1 can't enter CCR5+ cells in homozygote individuals (2 copies of the mutant gene). Heterozygotes (having a functional CCR5 and a mutated one) show less resistance to infection (70% resistance, estimated).

HIV-1 can exhibit a tropism (T-tropic) for another coreceptor, CXCR4, for which no mutation is known, so total immunity isn't exact; we can talk about resistance at best. M-tropic viruses are associated with de novo infection, and a switch to T-tropism is thought to be a turning point in the degeneration to AIDS (but not always).

Even CCR5delta32 individuals can be infected (althought have far less risk than you and me). Even then, the infection progress far more slowly than in normal individuals... they're called long term non-progressors. Won't develop AIDS in their lifetime, but still infectious, which can be dangerous...

According to my Chinese friend, the immunity comes from eating stinky fermented tofu [foodsubs.com] and thousand-year egg [geocities.com].

I personally plan to remain vulnerable. Alas.

The women are more than likely "resistant" to HIV infection, not "immune" to it. While colloquially, the two terms may mean the same thing, the term "immune" suggests that they can't be infected by HIV because their immune system recognizes and destroys the virus. "Resistance" works by some mechanism other than an immune response.

It's interesting that the mutation has been found in the Asian population, but I'm concerned that the article places an emphasis on ideas of race, which has been an obsolete scientific term since genetic research in the 1940s and 50s.

Race and the idea of race have are not medical ideas. The reason why so many Europeans (not merely Caucasians) have one or two copies of the mutant gene is because of the bottle neck of the black plague throughout Europe. It afforded them some or cmplete resistance to it. It is entirely possible that the Chinese people found to have the gene may have these ancestors themselves. As Chinese "asians" are just as much a mix of people from different places as "caucasians".

There is no scientific basis for ideas of race whatsoever - we are all homo sapiens.

Of all the genes in human being, about 75 per cent are identical in every person; only 25 per cent vary from person to person. And of that variable amount, 85 per cent of the difference would be present even if the two people were fairly closely related; that is, an ethnic subgroup, like Norwegians. Another 9 per cent of the genetic variation will result from individuals being members of separate nations or tribes within a "race"--a Spaniard and an Italian, for example. And only about 6 per cent is the result of the two people being from what we call separate races. Any person's race accounts for only about 0.24 per cent (or 6 per cent of 25 per cent) of his genetic make-up.
Info taken from here [sunysb.edu].

AIDS resistance has also been found in family trees that survived Black Death some 600 years ago.

http://www.geocities.com/endeavour_uksa/article.ht ml [geocities.com]
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1511/is _n6_v18/ai_19447788/pg_2 [findarticles.com]