Antibody Discovered To Boost HIV Vaccines

An anonymous reader sends this clip from Scienceblog.com. "Scientists have discovered two potent human antibodies that can stop more than 90 percent of known global HIV strains from infecting human cells in the laboratory, and have demonstrated how one of these disease-fighting proteins accomplishes this feat. ... Research efforts to find individual antibodies that can neutralize HIV strains have been difficult because the virus continuously changes its surface proteins to evade recognition by the immune system. As a consequence of these changes, an enormous number of HIV variants exist worldwide. However, there are a few surface areas that remain nearly constant across all variants of HIV and scientists have now discovered two potent human antibodies that attach to one of these sites and can stop more than 90 percent of known global HIV strains from infecting human cells in the laboratory. ... The researchers also confirmed that VRC01 does not bind to human cells — a characteristic that might otherwise lead to its elimination during immune development, a natural mechanism the body employs to prevent autoimmune disease."

Sounds good...

[mea37]

...at least in the short term. But while my understanding is limited, one question seems glaring to me:

If you cook up a medicine that treats 90% of HIV strains, in the long run are you doing anything more than ensuring that the remaining 10% become the entire body of the disease?

Re:Techno Puzzle

[PerfectionLost]

He won't. You opt out as part of your agreement to lab testing. There was an article about this on NPR a couple months ago, but I can't seem to find it.

Prevents CD4 binding

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is the mechanism that HIV uses to do the borg-like stuff. If the borg had no ability to assimilate, nobody would be scared of them.

Not all it's cracked up to be

[overshoot]

An HIV researcher's take on the news. [scienceblogs.com]

Re:Not the mechanism

[cpricejones]

The in vitro / in vivo gap is definitely a worry. The next stages of trials will give an answer with regards to that. The current issue of Science has several articles about the spread of HIV, including a good review about why it is difficult to eradicate HIV in an infected individual. ( for those with access, http://www.sciencemag.org/content/current/ [sciencemag.org] or http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/329/5988/174.pdf [sciencemag.org] ) There are many great broadly neutralizing antibodies coming out right now, and even though HIV has an astonishing ability to escape our immune systems, there is hope that these will be successful for vaccines. ( http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev-immunol-030409-101256 [annualreviews.org] )

Re:Progress on this front is good

[Beardo the Bearded]

Condoms are differentially permeable membranes.

Think about that for a minute, or twenty, which is how often they recommend changing gloves if you work with blood.

Re:Progress on this front is good

[hitmark]

not by a long shot.

Note on reverse transcription

[johnpc831]

If my memory of microbiology serves me correctly, the variance in HIV has more to do with the super error-prone reverse transcription process than it does with the virus actually trying to evade destruction. Transcribing DNA from RNA also requires elements of the host cell, which can vary from person to person, and there is no error checking done at all.

Re:Pshhh

[phantomfive]

That's pretty much on par with conspiracy, there man. It's like saying Haliburton caused the BP well leak because they knew they would be called in to help clean it up, except worse.

Either pull out your evidence that all companies are avoiding researching on promising AIDS cures, or put away the tin-foil hat.