This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Two Women Found With HIV-Immune Mutant Gene
Related Links Top of the: day, week, month.
Decaffeinated coffee? Just Say No.
Decaffeinated coffee? Just Say No.
this also linked to (Score:4, Funny)
Tell me it ain't so ! (Score:3, Funny)
"... it is linked directly to the ugly gene."
Say it ain't so, buddy.
If the human civilization succumbs to the AIDS epidemic, the NEW human civilization will have those two women as their MOTHERS.
RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
Re:RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Tell me it ain't so ! (Score:4, Funny)
Like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, there is speculation that this has already happened...
"Yuck, me new woman have ugly flat brow and high forehead!"
"Then why you sleep with her?"
"She very inventive."
Re:Tell me it ain't so ! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tell me it ain't so ! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tell me it ain't so ! (Score:5, Insightful)
um, no (Score:5, Informative)
Re:um, no (Score:4, Informative)
perhaps a misnomer today since the second world [Communist world aligned against the US-Led block] is no more [except china N-Corea etc.]
Re:um, no (Score:4, Informative)
As bluFox pointed out [slashdot.org], 3d world refers to Non-Aligned nations.
See Wikipedia's definition [wikipedia.org].
'Third world is a term originally used to distinguish those nations that neither aligned with the capitalist West, the "First world", nor with the Socialist East, the "Second world".'
Third world has nothing to do with development, it refers to whether you were with the Capitalistic (US) or Communistic (USSR) blocks.
Man, Slashdot. Sheesh.
Re:Tell me it ain't so ! (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it is time to officially retire the term "third world" since hardly anyone has a clue what it means and keeps making up their own definitions. I have to admit that including a communist country with nuclear weapons is the most imaginitive inclusion in the "third world" I've yet to see.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_world [wikipedia.org]
Isn't it ironic?
Re:Tell me it ain't so ! (Score:4, Informative)
My father is the chairman of the Canadian branch larger organization that deals with children worldwide. As part of that mandate they have come to view AIDS as perhaps THE greatest problem that they have to deal with.
Basically, AIDS creates widows and orphans. And widows & orphans cause more poverty & more starvation. Not just because THEY are starving or poor, but because it robs their country of productive people and potentially productive people. You really see this in the schools. In countries like Tanzania & Zambia, they're losing teachers to AIDS faster than they can train them! Obviously this translates into less educated people, and that ultimately translates into fewer teachers (among many other things). And the cycle continues.
My father's been to many countries over there to see the problem first hand. In some places, it IS getting better. But very, very, slowly. Other places it's just getter worse every day.
I had the opportunity to go over in May 2004 and I spent 10 days in Zambia & Tanzania (the latter is making better headway). I can say that the problem is as bad as my father & his organization think, and it's far worse than most people in the West have any clue about. It's easy to talk about numbers, but it's a lot harder to put a value on the social and personal costs...and those are enormous.
Worst though, it was goddamn frustrating. My overreaching emotion throughout the trip was anger. Because by and large the people in those countries were getting better! All those old clichés about how poor and hungry the African countries may have been true, but they were starting to get out from under that; you could see it. But then AIDS kicked them right in the teeth and it's like watching someone who'd started to crawl out of quicksand start to slide back. It's disheartening.
AIDS has probably set the continent back 15 years. And that'll probably get worse. In Zambia, I think there are 10 MILLION orphans. 10 million!!! That's a goddamn 1/3 of the population of Canada!
And, of course, even if scientists manage to isolate a gene that prevents the infection, and bottle it, and distribute it, Africa will be the last place on earth that gets it. Because they're in debt already and have little money anyways. Hell, it costs US$3 for a pill that reduces the chances that a baby born from a mother with HIV will also have HIV to less than 10%...and most of the people there can't afford it. Or worse, can but don't know about it because the people there who have them can't afford to educate the people about it. And so it spreads
Re:Tell me it ain't so ! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm so angry about your short rant that I could spit. (And shame on you moderators.) But instead of throwing a fit, I'm going to spell it out for you very clearly starting with the most aggrecious of your claims:
Having been HIV+ for three years, and expecting to be so for the rest of my (possibly short) life, as I'm sure and expert like you is so aware, HIV and AIDS are two medical conditions. I expect to be free from the symptoms of AIDS for at least another ten years. Your comments here expose a profound misunderstanding of how HIV works, immuno reponse works, and the variety of drugs that can keep HIV/AIDS folks out of the red zone for a very long time. Indeed is was true 20 years ago that HIV meant extreme immuno vulnerablility but that is no longer the case.
And for being an expert, somewhere along the way you, apparently, missed the class on medical ethics in which you would have learned that the central edict of medicine is increasing the quality of life for its recipients.
I don't know what kind of Nazi fantasy world you live in but there is no way in hell you are going to put me under house arrest 'for my protection' so that you feel safer when you don't know where your children are or who they are doing. The very notion that we can social engineer sexual exposure out of our society is nieve at best and disturbed at worst.
It sounds like you've been reading so Christian-right pro-abstainance bullshit. Your analogy fails in two ways:
Re:Tell me it ain't so ! (Score:5, Informative)
It may not be relative (Score:5, Interesting)
The idea here is that what the scientists did was create a completely average face -- that is, mathematically average. Faces with big noses, or big chins, or buggy eyes, were cancelled out by the majority of faces that didn't share those features. In the end, what you got was a face every feature of which was the "norm" for the human race at large.
So the conclusion you could draw from this study is that the people we find the most attractive are the ones with the least apparent variation. A particularly exaggerated feature on a face might be viewed as a sign that some radical genetic divergence has taken place in that person's development -- and we don't care much for that, as a species. While diversity might be good for evolution, we like the norm (and this has nothing to do with skin color or the facial features of any particular ethnicity; so far as I know the scientists used a whole cross-section of people).
So if this theory is true, then no, human standards of beauty are not actually as relative as romantics might assume.
Re:It may not be relative (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, I once saw a show on PBS where some scientists did a clever test.
You may be referring to Dr. Stephen Marquardt [discovery.com] who found that faces considered to be beautiful conform to certain proportions [discovery.com]. It is based on the Golden Ratio [wikipedia.org], which has many recurrances in nature, such as in the chambers of a nautilus shell.
Re:Tell me it ain't so ! (Score:5, Interesting)
Take the Bubonic Plague, for example. It had the potential to destroy humanity, due to the lack of technology, specifically the knowledge of how it was transmitted.
Coincidentally, there is a correlation [bbc.co.uk] between the distribution of this mutant gene in populations and the bubonic plague. It is speculated that its high concentration in Caucasians is a result of it's ability to resist the black death.
Re:Tell me it ain't so ! (Score:4, Informative)
So how come HIV infection rates in developed countries are still increasing?
http://www.healthscout.com/news/68/516241/main.ht
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2003-02-11-hi
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_pag
http://www.hivdent.org/publicp/ppIHDS122003.htm [hivdent.org]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3856963.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Re:Tell me it ain't so ! (Score:5, Insightful)
In Africa there are massive cultural and practical barriers in place. It is much much harder to transmit this information widely, and there are strong cultural biases against abstinence/protection. The most sickening cultural belief is that having sex with a virgin cures you of AIDS. This is especially bad because between the long standing beliefs and the fact that people are sexually active younger there, the only virgins are very young children or babies. It's fairly horrifying.
It will take a lot of time, effort and money to bring the AIDS crisis under control in Africa. President Bush was wise (for once) to commit billions to fighting the problem there. He was also wise to recommend that the program have an abstinence element to it. The Uganda program that contained an abstinence element was unusually successful in fighting AIDS in that country. I only wish he had lived up to his commitment by actually funding it at the level he promised.
My parents spent the last 3 years living in Lesotho (the country inside of S. Africa), so they've spent a lot of time discussing this with the local Peace Corps volunteers. It is fairly discouraging, but very important that we do something about it.
Re:this also linked to (Score:4, Funny)
Re:this also linked to (Score:3, Funny)
Immune (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Immune (Score:5, Informative)
Patents are the real key (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Patents are the real key (Score:5, Insightful)
Cite?
(Yes, I know not believing everything you read is genereally bad for the karma. So mod me down).
Re:Patents are the real key (Score:5, Informative)
(Yes, I know not believing everything you read is genereally bad for the karma. So mod me down).
The wonders of google:
CCR5 Mutant Gene Sequence Patented for AIDS diagnoses
Actually this one is more appropriate: Here is another article [aegis.com] on a general CCR5 Gene Patent from Human Genome Sciences. This article goes quite in depth w/ regards the consequence of the patent filing on drug research w/ CCR5 inhibitors.
-bloo
Re:Patents are the real key (Score:5, Insightful)
The human race is going to be the first race in history to litigate itself into oblivion.
Re:Immune (Score:5, Informative)
From the article
"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.Sounds like some mutant genes have been found previously, so I am not sure if this will add any new information to the fight against AIDS.
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.China had better be prepared for a potential disaster. Even if the presense of this "mutant" gene does lead to some sort of cure, it will probably take years to develop and test. In the meantime, China, along with most Middle Eastern and Asian countries, has a high risk of having an AIDS related disaster of a scope way beyond what we now see in Africa. We're talking tens of millions of people infected and/or dying all across the Middle East and Asia.
Re:Immune (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Immune (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Immune (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Immune (Score:5, Informative)
My biology teacher covered it as part of our lesson on HIV, about 3 years ago. Basically, it has to do with the structure of their white blood cells. Specifically, they lack the CCR-5 protein for the virus to latch on to. The best part is that people can function just fine without this protein, so there don't appear to be any ill effects. The trick now is figuring out how to confer the immunity on those not born with it.
A simple search for "ccr-5" will give a whole bunch of articles for anyone who's interested.
Re:Immune (Score:4, Insightful)
This is not true, Keep in mind the vector that spreads aids is sex 1 guy gets it from the side, has sex with his wife and maybe a little more on the side and four people are infected.
As for Asian culture's its no more or less sexual than American culture some are more strict than others. Until after the Korean war it was quite common for men to keep second families, even now many still do despite modern stigmas..
Come to Asia and taste it, buddy ! (Score:5, Informative)
You sez:
"culturally Asians seem to be a lot less
promiscuous, which would imply that this
disaster doesn't seem so imminent"
This is so only to show others.
Asian culture is at its best in the sex scene.
On one hand, they will pretend that they are not sexually promiscuous, and on the other hand, the vast majority of Child Prostitution in the world happen throughout Asian countries. You can find child prostitutes in Indonesia, China, India, Kampuchia (formerly known as Cambodia), Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Hong Kong, The Philippines, Malaysia and so on.
If you are willing to pay, you can even participate in the "deflowering" act, where you'd get a virgin child - male or female - for his / her first night.
What you do to them, as long as you don't kill them, is entirely up to you.
Re:Come to Asia and taste it, buddy ! (Score:4, Informative)
There are asian sluts out there, believe me. (Score:5, Funny)
Being turned down by asian chicks doesn't mean asian cultures are less promiscuous
Re:Immune (Score:5, Interesting)
But you're talking about an exponential process. If everybody has unprotected sex with n persons while being infected, as soon as n > 1, the actual value of n matters very little: the disease will spread with catastrophic speed. It might take more time to infect the whole population, but not that much.
As an example, if in one case the process spreads with multiplicative factor n1 = 2, and in the other n2 = 8, then it will only take 3 times as long for the first process to infect as many people. If n1 = 2 and n2 = 16, it will be 4 times as long.
The ratio between total infection times is equal to the ratio of the logs of the two multiplicative factors. You can check by yourself, it's just basic logarithm / exponent manipulation.
Of course in this simplistic analysis we ignore repetitions (people already infected do not contribute to any further increase in infections). But these effects become significant only when a sizeable proportion of the population is infected, so essentially if one population is small and the other is large, the disease will spread faster, for a longer time, in the second one.
Oh, btw, remember that in the case of India and China put together, we are talking about one third of mankind.
But there is an even more depressing aspect of AIDS. With AIDS, abstinence is only a protection if it is absolute. There are some populations in which such a thing exists. Most of the time it is enforced by scaringly oppressive traditions / religions / customs. In other words, when AIDS becomes widespread enough to have a significant impact on the population, it turns obscurantism into a Darwinian advantage.
Thomas-
Someone call... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Someone call... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm imagining them in the leather bodysuits from the movies, but crotchless and with a opening at the elbows for shooting up. Their arch-nemesis shall be Donkey Boy and Heroin Girl.
Oh god, what kind of pathetic geek am I? I just turned an important piece of AIDS research that could help millions into a bad porno comic joke... I will log off before I embarrass myself further.
If you need me, I will be in my bedroom, masturbating...
mirrored... (Score:3, Informative)
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."
If they were male (Score:5, Funny)
Re:If they were male (Score:3, Funny)
Nahh, sounds too geeky...
Genetics at work? (Score:5, Interesting)
Just my first thoughts on the subject. I would like to know more about the study.
Re:Genetics at work? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think that's exactly the case. HIV is only twenty-five years old, which certainly isn't enough time for genetic evolution to take place (especially considering the relatively slow reporductive rate of humans).
It's more likely they've an odd mutant gene that by coincadence makes them immune to the virus.
Re:Genetics at work? (Score:5, Informative)
HIV is most certainly NOT only 25 years old.
It's extremely old, they have preserved tissue samples from almost 50 years ago or so that have been found to contain the virus (the subject died in exactly the same way as the first cases presented here)
(an english sailor died of a oppertunistic diseases, and after he died, tissue was preserved for later study.)
The event that has made HIV into a new epidemic is massive changes in social morality. Originally, HIV was called the Gay-Related immuno-deficiency syndrome or somesuch, because it was primarily affecting people who were outwardly gay.
Of course, it turned out that these people were just starting to be very broad in their choice of partners, and of course, people were starting to share needles for drug use.
ashridah
Re:Genetics at work? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps you could explain how this observation works with the fact that the most virulent New World disease (Syphilis) managed to spread like wildfire from Catholic Spain at the height of the Inquisition, throughout European society. And while you're at it, perhaps you could explain how it was still a significant and common disease at the height of the Victorian period.
Maybe I'll save you the effort. Both Syphilis and HIV/AIDS were enabled by revolutions in *Human Mobility*, not changes in morality. The syphilis epidemic erupted at the same time that commerce via ship hit a spike, and HIV/AIDS hit us when air travel spiked.
It's no surprise that 'Patient Zero' in the US HIV/AIDS outbreak was an airline steward. It *is* a coincidence that he happened to be gay.
Re:Genetics at work? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Genetics at work? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Genetics at work? (Score:5, Informative)
Mutations happen all the time - 0.0000000000000214/nucleotide/generation according to these guys [nih.gov]. Now multiply that by 3 billion nucleotides in a human, and 70(?) days to replace all the cells in your body. Most of the time, the mtuation is fatal and the cell dies. Most of the rest of the time, it does nothing at all. Once in a while, you get a mutation that is actually beneficial. And once in a while, that mutation happens to occur in gamates, so it actually gets passed on to children. That's clearly what happened in this case.
Re:Genetics at work? (Score:4, Interesting)
0.0000000000000214/nucleotide/generation
multiply that by 3 billion nucleotides in a human
------------------
0.0000642
70 year lifespan = 365 70-day cycles.
(so 0.0000642 x 365)
------------------
0.0243433
1 (person) divided by 0.0243433
------------------
4.1
So 1 mutation every 4 peoples entire lives, with a "most of the time it does nothing at all", sure doesnt look like a lot of evolution just whizzing past us to me...
Of course I'm just computing numbers without fact checking and maybe missing something.
Misinformative (Score:4, Insightful)
Virtual Light (Score:5, Interesting)
Not as interesting as it sounds... (Score:4, Informative)
1 More Reason to Find Swedish Women Hot (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not as interesting as it sounds... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not as interesting as it sounds... (Score:5, Interesting)
No one knows, but it doesn't seem to be linked to morphological differences in the brain. And I doubt we'll find out any time soon, since bisexuals are generally treated as deviants by both hetero- and homosexuals (except when it's part of some straight guy's "bi-babe" fantasy).
Max
Not really news (Score:5, Informative)
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.
CCR5delta32 is probably the mutant gene (Score:5, Informative)
Even the statement about putting the "gene" in the vagina or rectum is not new: see microbicides [google.com].
Just a word to the wise, news like this will rarely, if ever, scoop a scientific publication in Science or Nature. If the discoveries truly have any scientific merit whatsoever, you'll more likely read about it in these journals or the media commotion stirred by these publications. In other words, unless somewhere in the article is says "results of these studies published in the journal [place name of journal here]," the results have not been peer reviewed. Therefore, "there's nothing to see here, move on."
What a coincidence... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
immunity? someone should research slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
I hope this is true (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:I hope this is true (Score:5, Interesting)
Same goes for any kind of cancer - it can insidiously grow in you until there's nothing you can do about it but waste away and die.
Probably going to burn some karma with those comments, but it's a terrible disease that they're working on. I hope they find a cure and kick its ass - same for cancer - but it's just another way to die.
Glad to know (Score:5, Funny)
so.. (Score:4, Funny)
seen this immunity before... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Immunity? (Score:5, Informative)
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...
Immunity (Score:5, Funny)
I personally plan to remain vulnerable. Alas.
resistant, not immune (Score:5, Informative)
No such thing as race in science (Score:3, Interesting)
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].
Not totally new (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.geocities.com/endeavour_uksa/article.ht ml [geocities.com]
s _n6_v18/ai_19447788/pg_2 [findarticles.com]
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1511/i
Re:Spontaneous mutation? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not something I'd especially want to gamble on, though - HIV mutates nearly every time it infects, and at some point I think these people who are now immune won't be immune any longer.
Delta 32 (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if either of those fellows could have been carriers of the delta 32 gene, a mutated form of the gene CCR5:
"In 1996, research showed that delta 32 prevents HIV from entering human cells and infecting the body"
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_plague/
I didn't see in the article anywhere where it mentioned which gene was affected in the Chinese women, but it seems like to be a different one, based on the information presented in the "Secrets" show:
"O'Brien assembled an international team of scientists to test for the presence of delta 32 around the world. "Native Africans did not have delta 32 at all," O'Brien says, "and when we looked at East Asians and Indians, they were also flat zero." In fact, the levels of delta 32 found in Eyam were only matched in regions of Europe that had been affected by the plague and in America, which was, for the most part, settled by European plague survivors and their descendents."
It was a really good show and if you get the opportunity to watch it, I highly recommend that you do.
Re:Spontaneous mutation? (Score:3, Informative)
If you believe in that sort of thing. The theory seems to be that it prevents the virus from binding in the first place. It has no chance to mutate, within the host at least.
Dubious Science (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Does this make sense to anyone? Granted, these are the reporter's words, not the doctor's words... but that just doesn't sound logical to me. The virus is there, in contact with this "medicine" and your own cells. Because of the medicine's structure, the virus can't affect it, but how does that help your own cells, which do NOT have that protection?
Frankly, the simple (but often unused/misused) "condom" solution seems easier in this example then the medicine he's talking about.
Much of the AIDS epidemic in Africa is directly caused by people misunderstanding how the virus is transmitted and treated (no, sex with virgins or babies won't help you), due in some cases to the sheer stupidity of certain leaders ("HIV does NOT cause AIDS"), poor education programs, and the equally stupid refusal of certain other religious-minded leaders who refuse to support programs that advocate anything other than celibacy to prevent STDs. Madness.
I hope that at a minimum, China is putting some serious resources into educating their population about how HIV/AIDS works, and how to avoid getting it. Obviously that's not the end of the battle, but it's the basic starting point.
Re:Spontaneous mutation? (Score:4, Insightful)
You really are a twit!
Think about the logic...here, I'll help.
Change (mutation) in person A.
Person A is now immune to Disease B.
Person A can't be infected by the disease.
This is good!
Wow, imagine that! It changed for the good!
Now...
Change (mutation) in person C.
Person C is now a huge risk for Disease D, gets Disease D.
Person C dies of Disease D.
The changes are not passed on... (This is the opposite of bad, or in other words: good)
Wow! ANOTHER `change` for the good!
This was a generalized version.
It takes us millions of years to develop frontal lobes, because there are millions of changes. Every single one of us has a mutation of some type, it's just that some of the mutations don't manifest themselves.
Now, ideally, you understood this. If you didn't, good luck with the rest of your life.
Re:Lucky ladies! (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed! Now all they have to worry about is...
Gohnorrea
Herpes
Chlamydia
Syphillis
G
HPV
Hepatitus
Trichomoniasis
and more! Lucky bitches...
Re:Lucky ladies! (Score:5, Informative)
Gohnorrea
Herpes
Chlamydia
Syphillis
G
HPV
Hepatitus
Trichomoniasis
and more! Lucky bitches...
In order....
Curable.
Nasty stuff, but not fatal.
Curable.
Curable.
Nasty stuff, once again not fatal.
Nasty stuff, not fatal unless it causes cancer.
Possibly fatal.
Nasty stuff, but curable.
HIV is the queen mother of STDs, once that is out of the way, there will be a lot more au naturale love happening in the world.
LK
Re:Lucky ladies! (Score:4, Funny)
Sounds like the current administration.
Just like Password (Score:5, Funny)
Herpes....
Chlamydia....
Syphilli
Genital Warts...
HPV....
Hepatitus...
Trichomoniasis..
I know! Things the average Slashdotter won't ever have to worry about.
ding ding ding
But HPV is more prevalent than GW are (Score:4, Interesting)
Last I heard, there were over 90 strains, and several are common on even non sexually-active folks.
HPV transmits through skin contact, so rubbers won't prevent it. But the VAST majority of the time it does NOTHING, no warts, no cancers, NOTHING. Certain combinations of strains seem to cause the warts, and that's far less common than having no symptoms at all.
Overall, I think there's a LOT of fear mongering about STDs. The problem is really much more prevalent amongst the poor and uneducated. If you pick your partners right, and 'look before you leap' you have pretty good chances of coming out OK. It's good to get your partner to prove no infection before you hit it raw though, and you should go 'get swabbed' every year or so.
Also remember, there are less than 100,000 women with HIV in the United States. Your chances of sleeping with an HIV-infected female pickup in the USA is about 1 in 1500. Your chances of CONTRACTING HIV from that would be under 1 in 30,000. For non-junkie heterosexual men seeking women in the USA, your chance of being infected with HIV is almost nothing. Worry about the nasty STDs instead.
Re:Lucky ladies! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lucky ladies! (Score:5, Informative)
Trust me, that abrupt "stoppage" usually lasts much, much longer than nine months...
Re:Lucky ladies! (Score:3, Funny)
Yup. Unfortunately, I can verify that.
Unless you happen to be... (Score:4, Funny)
Unless you happen to be Catholic
Re:Lucky ladies! (Score:5, Funny)
and pregnancy. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Lucky ladies! (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it would be totally awesome if some kind of imaginary god did try and punish it's creation through the use of a cruel, life destroying virus - only to have his divine will deflected by something so simple as a tiny thicknesses of latex, education, testing and screening, as well as the hard work of doctors and scientists around the globe.
Would me wonder who should be quaking in fear from who.
Re:Woo hoo! (Score:3, Funny)
2. infect em with HIV, and discover that they are immune
3. ???
4. Profit!!!
Re:It seems unlikely. (Score:3, Insightful)
The only way to be immune, then, is for the white blood cells not to attack the virus, or even be in the area of it. The natural self-destruct system in the cells will eventually trigger. Provided the self-destruct triggers faster than the virus can spread, the body would be guaranteed to win.
Or, you could have white blood cells that HIV has difficulty attaching to. No attack vector means that HIV never gets a chance to do its work.
Re:It seems unlikely. (Score:3, Interesting)
otherwise completely normal (Score:5, Interesting)
A small fraction of people seems to be resistant to HIV infection because they carry idiosyncratic mutations that interfere with the way the HIV virus works. That doesn't mean they have a "pathetically weak immune system"; in fact, such mutations generally have no known effects at all other than conferring HIV resistance. Furthermore, resistance of some fraction of the population to specific viruses is a common occurrence.
But, hey, if that's what these two women want for their life, that's their problem.
WTF is that supposed to mean? One of the women in question was exposed to HIV from her husband, who was infected through a blood transfusion. It's bad enough that bigoted right wingers confuse stupidity and carelessness (unprotected sex) with immorality, but now people like you even consider accidentally getting a tainted blood transfusion a lifestyle choice and a moral failing?
I think you demonstrate just how absurd your kinds of views are, and the blithering nonsense that preceded it showed how uninformed you are.
Re:It seems unlikely. (Score:5, Informative)
Hmmm...Is the parent a nice molecular-biology troll or just a gem of ignorance mixed with self-confidence?
"Because there's very little in the virus that is guaranteed to be common to ALL instances of said virus, it is hard to see how immunity could exist, even in theory."
The resistance mutation depends from the absence of a particular chemokine receptor on human white blood cells. In principle, the HIV virus could use another receptor to enter. In practice it's quite improbable the virus can mutate his whole capsid proteins to get advantage of a totally new receptor.
"Then, you have other problems. HIV is detected in a number of ways, but probably the most common way is to detect the antibodies to the virus. This causes an obvious problem. If your immune system is damaged, in some way, it may not be able to detect the virus and/or produce antibodies to it. Either way, any technique for detecting HIV through the antibodies would fail."
You obviously have no grasp of immunology. HIV infects primarily subsets of T cells. They are not B cells, that produce soluble antibodies. B cells are not attacked by HIV,therefore you argument is bullshit.
(In fact, B cells are indirectly affected by HIV [sciencedaily.com], but only in late stages of AIDS disease.)
"So much so that they could fight the disease and not even need to generate antibodies to do so."
You have no grasp of immunology,it's obvious now. Your body doesn't "feel the need" for antibodies.It just produces them when encounters an antigen. In fact, you probably already have cells with anti-HIV antibodies: they're just very,very few and are not activated.(Wanna know why? RTFM, i.e. a molecular immunology textbook)
"In theory, since we don't actually know in practice."
We know. Check other /. comments and what I wrote before.
"Provided the self-destruct triggers faster than the virus can spread"
It seems you know nothing about virology and apoptosis too...
"...you're probably not going to live very long anyway, and your quality of life isn't going to be noticably better than those with the disease. In fact, it would probably be a whole lot worse. But, hey, if that's what these two women want for their life, that's their problem. "
If these women were immunodeficient, physicians should have noticed it immediately. Such a severe immunodeficience is, like you seem to understand, practically incompatible with life.
Re:It seems unlikely. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It seems unlikely. (Score:3, Informative)
HIV is detected in a number of ways, but probably the most common way is to detect the antibodies to the virus. This causes an obvious problem.
Screening for HIV is typically a cheap, fast antibody-based test. However, any positive is then confirmed via much more specific tests.
The only way to be immune, then
WTF do you think HIV does? What does the I in A
Re:It seems unlikely. (Score:5, Informative)
Read this and learn: [rcn.com]
Origin of HIV
Genome sequencing of different isolates of HIV-1 and HIV-2 shows that each is related to retroviruses that occur in primates in Africa. These are designated simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIV) although they do not cause immune deficiency (or any disease) in their natural host. However, on those occasions when a SIV accidentally infects a primate of a different species, it does cause disease in the new host. The human epidemic is one example.
HIV-1 is most closely related to a SIV found in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes troglodytes)
HIV-2 is most closely related to a SIV that occurs in the sooty mangabey (Cercocebus atys).
Genome analysis also permits the construction of phylogenetic trees which reveal different clades of HIV just as such analysis reveals evolutionary relationship between species.
(emphasis mine)
Re:Conspiracy theory (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Darn! (Score:5, Interesting)
While whether or not such research should have access to federal funds is debatable (and I'd probably agree that the current regulations are too restrictive), it's a far cry from actually banning such research.
One useful statistic that I've never come across is the relative ammounts of research funding spent in the U.S. by private vs. public/government sources.
Re:Eat it, creationist fuckwads (Score:3, Interesting)
Doesn't that also cause cancer?