Researchers Discover Gene That Blocks HIV 333
stemceller writes to tell us that a team of researchers at the University of Alberta claims to have discovered a gene capable of blocking HIV thereby preventing the onset of full blown AIDS. "Stephen Barr, a molecular virologist in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, says his team has identified a gene called TRIM22 that can block HIV infection in a cell culture by preventing the assembly of the virus. 'When we put this gene in cells, it prevents the assembly of the HIV virus," said Barr, a postdoctoral fellow. "This means the virus cannot get out of the cells to infect other cells, thereby blocking the spread of the virus.'"
Holy crap! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Holy crap! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure. They just use a mostly-dead other virus to permanently change your genetic code. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
Re:Holy crap! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Does anyone know if gene therapy has progressed far enough to actually apply this to cell DNA? Is this actually a real cure for AIDS
Sure. They just use a mostly-dead other virus to permanently change your genetic code. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
No. Grinding up HIVs for cell receptor antibodies is almost useless because any cell that has a CD4 receptor can be attacked by the HIV anyways. This is sort of like giving your generals the battle plans (the T helper cells ready to make antibodies). HIV then kills the generals before the battle plan can be implemented.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Holy crap! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
They're talking about a means by which you can avoid having the virus set in in the first place, by preventing it from being able to replicate. This would be something you'd do to yourself, genetically, before you are even exposed to HIV. If you don't already HAVE the virus, and don't do the things that, for most people, are what increase your odds of getting the virus, perhaps you wouldn't want your DNA messed with? That's the sort of thing to examine. Risk/
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Holy crap! (Score:5, Funny)
More seriously... (Score:5, Insightful)
So one possibility would be to :
- get some progenitor cells from the marrow
- do the recombination under laboratory controlled conditions using whatever methodology seems to be the best (not forced to use viruses that can still replicate other methods could be acceptable)
- select those progenitor cells where the recombination happened in the most optimal way (the new gene did got indeed inserted, and got inserted at a correct place where it won't cause cancer or otherwise disturb the function of gene that were present before the recombination)
- inject those modified cells into the patient bloodstream and let them go back to the bone marrow
- those celles produce a new generation of HIV-resistant lymphocytes.
As we are not forced to use virus inside a patient but can do the transformation under controlled conditions, and as we have a lot more knowledge about human genome, we might manage to diminish the risk of the transposons continuing to jump around and damage important genes (compared for example to what was found with Monsanto's GM corn).
Risks of rejection may be lowered compared to what happens with Cystic-fibrosis gene therapy, because :
- no virus inside the patient body and less foreign material : less likely to trigger a immune response.
- cells are only modified using the new gene, no other virus-cycle replicating proteins : less likely to be recognized as 'foreign'
- patient with an active AIDS are immuno-compromised anyway so the risk of immunological reject are lowered anyway.
Also, unlike other gene therapies, the effect of that one are very likely to be permanent because we have access to the progenitor cells that produce the lymphocytes. Whereas with CF gene therapy, the virus is inhaled and affects cells on the surface of the respiratory tract : mostly differentiated cells that won't divide anymore, once they are dead a new exposition to the virus is necessary to produce a new crop of modified cells, hence the risk of rejection increase with each exposition. In CF, the progenitor cells aren't easily available.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Holy crap! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Holy crap! (Score:5, Interesting)
We only have a small problem
Let's say it's this way. We have a patch for a flaw in your windows. Except it's on paper. And the computers won't boot until the patch is applied, so we need to take out the hard drive and *manually* change the bits on it. We have an electron microscope that *sometimes* has been used to change some random bits on the harddrive, which has once or twice resulted in a "mostly" correct change. Oh yes, and we have a billion computers, all of which still need to be operational after the change.
That's where we are. We know what to change (or so we hope), it's just
Re:Holy crap! (Score:4, Interesting)
I shouldn't have to point out the multitude of issues brought up by creating a new 'race' of humans that are immune to HIV; there are so many other things that could go wrong with slice-and-dicing the human genome that we probably won't see the tangible results of this early experiment for many, many years to come. Despite this, it is a reassuring step forward in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Looks like some legacy I've had to work it in the past.
Re:Holy crap! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Holy crap! (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Very true. Unfortunately, the mechanisms of full-blown AIDS run too deep, so that even expelling AIDS would still leave the body in a likely incurable state. Still, that would certainly prolong the lives of those diagnosed with AIDS, so it's still a worthy cause.
Re:Holy crap! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Holy crap! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why ?
Because a cure will "save" the 0.6% of the population AND leave the remaining 99.4% of the population with the peace of mind of knowing that in the unfortunate event that they do contract HIV they are not completely fsck'd.
Of course the best scenario would be both a vaccine and a cure.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not everything is a choice.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
And showering washes away all your sins
*rolleyes*
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, a complete cure doesn't just help that 0.6%...it also helps that 99.4% to the extent that they are at risk of getting the disease.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Holy crap! (Score:5, Interesting)
nonsense (Score:2)
That's nonsense. If you knew anything about vaccines, you'd know that it's pretty much impossible to make a vaccine out of this discovery. But it might lead to a treatment.
Re:Holy crap! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Holy crap! (Score:5, Insightful)
btw, Bill Gates is the devil.
How to filter low impact science (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How to filter low impact science (Score:5, Informative)
This is not comparable to to Nature, Science or PLoS Biology but for a specialized journal it's quite high.
The good thing about the PLoS Journals is that they rank quite high _and_ the articles are open accessible by day one. This means that an ordinary slashdot user (not sitting in a rich lab or library that has spent truckloads of money to access the most important journals in its field) has the chance to _read_ the f#@*ing primary resarch article.
As said, the paper is here [plosjournals.org] although the site is down for maintenance at the moment
Re:How to filter low impact science (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to have a misguided interpretation of the role and purpose of Slashdot...
Premature Congratulations (Score:5, Informative)
Yet after literally hundreds of millions in financing, there isn't yet any real curative treatment. Why? Because HIV is a retrovirus with one of the worst polymerases known. It's just so bad at copying itself, that any treatment applied in-vivo acts only as a selective pressure.
Same is the case for HIV vaccines - even though there ARE conserved regions of the virus, they aren't very good targets, and the ones that are good targets are too antigenically fluid to be targeted.
In the end, my opinion as a virologist is that stopping the spread of HIV, and continuing to develop a larger palette of inhibitors are the proper solutions to the HIV problem. If we treat the people who have been infected, and don't infect any more... HIV will not be a problem after 2 generations.
Re:Premature Congratulations (Score:5, Interesting)
You'd be a good person to ask this one of, then.... is there any truth to the theory that over time, humans will develop a natural immunity to HIV in the same way that cats have largely developped immunity to Feline Leukemia and FIV?
Re:Premature Congratulations (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Try it the other way around. For a virus, as for any parasite, killing off the host is a bad move. Taking the point of view of the HIV virus, its best move is to delay the onset of AIDS as long as possible, to maximise its chances of infecting new hosts. We might not evolve to
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In the end, my opinion as a virologist is that stopping the spread of HIV, and continuing to develop a larger palette of inhibitors are the proper solutions to the HIV problem. If we treat the people who have been infected, and don't infect any more... HIV will not be a problem after 2 generations.
Good luck implementing that plan in Africa.
Even with US & UN aids money they can't afford to provide, to everyone, the generics made by countries that have broken US pharma patents.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Holy crap! (Score:5, Insightful)
Always Remember: AIDS is Deadly. It is not a "chronic condition." It is a death sentence, maybe it'll take 5, even 10 years to kill some small group of victims, for many it is as few as 6-24 months. Way, way to many young people somehow manage to remain ignorant of this.
Re: (Score:2)
Now I know I am taking a lot of liberty here but what if we found something that was 80% effective at curing aids and this was able to contain the other 20% of the virus which could also be killed off by something specific to the gene mutation we make. Imagine it this way, Something else kills or contains the HIV or aids spread. A blood c
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Last package I checked actually required keeping the condoms refrigerated until use and double-wrapping to actually hit their (already less than stellar) prevention rate
That's what's wrong with them -- they suck at what they're supposed to do.
Re: (Score:2)
Press releases are useless. (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WXR-4KCGHS0-3&_user=18704&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000002018&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=18704&md5=f922f45405809276e69864f01d98ef4c [sciencedirect.com]
According to this study, TRIM22 is one of most inef
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.plospathogens.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.ppat.0030197
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Holy crap! (Score:4, Interesting)
So you can imagine the interest in TRIM genes and proteins. Just Pubmed TRIM5alpha and you'll see many articles. TRIM22 is probably a homologue of TRIM5alpha. The article does not seem to mention anything about TRIM5alpha probably because it makes it seem like their work has already been done. See below for the original finding:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14985764?ordinalpos=110&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum [nih.gov]
But how will it be used? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:But how will it be used? (Score:5, Insightful)
Science is expensive. Large-scale high-throughput biomedical science is even more expensive. Clinical trials are EVEN MORE expensive. Where do you expect that the money for all of that comes from.
It seems that on Slashdot, the prevalent opinion is that we should all get whatever we want, whenever we want, for free (or nearly free). That's not how the real world works. Many scientists are working on important biological pathways... but it is largely with the financing of the pharmaceutical companies, that they are able to translate their discoveries into drugs.
Could we improve the system? Of course.
Should we ban consumer-targeting pharmaceutical advertisement? Absolutely.
Should we heavily regulate drug companies? Certainly.
But one thing we should be careful about doing, is assuming that all biomedical science will be miraculously well-financed if drug companies disappear.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
So, yeah, we have to take into
Is healthcare a right? (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's compare healthcare to food, for instance. In the civilized world, it's a nearly universal agreement, that people should have enough food to survive. Hence, the different forms of welfare programs, food stamps, etc... We provide people who are poor, with enough money or money equivalents, to obtain sufficient sustenance. We don't, however, provide them with 5-course chef-prepared meals every night.
The problem is, however, that people who flame the government and "corporations" for not providing medication for everyone, are essentially suggesting that we provide full healthcare for everyone... which equates to giving out filet mignon welfare, given the costs of many cutting edge drugs and treatments. Now I don't have a problem with the concept of this "filet mignon welfare"... except that I cannot personally afford it... and neither can you.
So as a society, we will at some point have to face the realization that we cannot provide the highest quality healthcare to every member of our society, no matter how hard we try. I wish I had the solution to this problem, but I do not. If I come up with one, I promise to share it with the world, as there is nothing more I'd like to see, than a world where the only diseases people die of, are ones for which cures and treatments haven't been discovered yet. But that's not a world of today, nor do I envision such a world in the near future.
Re: (Score:2)
If you're suggesting that it's in any way just for one's health outcome to be determined by their access to resources, I suggest that your definition of "justice" needs some work.
Re: (Score:2)
That's one of the problem
Re:Is healthcare a right? (Score:5, Insightful)
If healthcare resources are so scarce that we are unable to effectively treat all members of society, then society must decide how to distribute those resources. As I stated above, it's not justice to award those scarce resources to only one class of people. In the original position, one would likely decide to allocate them either based on an attribute other than wealth, or more likely, allocate them in a random distribution (i.e., if there are two people with terminal cancer, and society can only afford to cure one of them, there's a coin flip).
I also wonder whether you've considered how much of that scarcity is based on scarcity of physical goods, labor, etc., and how much is artificial scarcity that could be changed by changing societal structure. For instance, if a pharmaceutical company can be compensated so that there is incentive to research new life-saving drugs, while amortizing the cost of said drugs over the whole population, rather than just on a small number of sufferers, it may no longer be the case that the sufferers are forced to compete for access to their medication.
Re: (Score:2)
True, quite true.
However, there is a slight difference between the prescriptions that fight Parkinson's Disease and Foie Gras.
My income comes from things that have been heavily researched. The raw materials for what I engineer are quite cheap compared to what I charge for the finished product. ($2-3k in materials and then so
Re: (Score:2)
But the amount of healthcare provided can be a spectrum, not all or nothing. I believe that for a nation to call itself a civilization, certain things must be assured to its population. Food, as in your example, is one of those things. Another is that a person will not die from a preventable cause when there is a treatment or some other form of action available. A country which allows its citizens to die needlessly is not a civilization.
This is not the same as doing everything possible. But citizens physi
Re: (Score:2)
Better food does not = better nutrition or a better odds at survival. It just tastes better. Therefore, it's a *luxury*. Better healthcare does directly impact your odds of survival -- by quite a large margin. In fact, we don't even provide most people with "bread and butter" healthcare. Emergency rooms are required to treat you by law (given that is actually an emergency) and for many people that's the only healthcare they will receive.
By the time it's an emergency, w
Re: (Score:2)
If the person you're "feeding" dies of malnutrition, then you didn't actually provide them with sufficient sustenance, much less fine dining.
Likewise if someone dies of a treatable condition, you didn't actually provide sufficient health care.
Not providing filet mignon healthcare means no facelifts, tummy tucks and so on. It could even mean limiting reconstructive surgery to functional goals. Perhaps they just have to put up with minor allergies. A ward or rather than a private hospital room. That can
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Is healthcare a right? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
It seems that on Slashdot, the prevalent opinion is that we should all get whatever we want, whenever we want, for free (or nearly free).
"Whatever we want, whenever we want...?" Things like, I don't know, NOT dying horribly?
Re:But how will it be used? (Score:5, Informative)
If you read the last paragraph of the article (I know, "Read? this is slashdot!") they mention who actually paid for this. In the name of public education, I'll duplicate it for you:.
Your hypothesis that the current system is well financed by pharma companies may be incorrect...
Even more premature (Score:3, Informative)
It's a in-vitro study of one tiny aspect of one pathway that MAY be helpful in TRYING to create a treatment.
If a cure is a 20-layer cake, these people have created a recipe for the syrup for the cream, for one of the layers. According to you, that negates the need to buy ingredients, find out the recipes for the other layers, hire the chef, or actually make the cake!
Re:But how will it be used? (Score:5, Informative)
But that doesn't mean it would be out of the reach of the poor either. Every poor person has access to medical in the US through welfare SCHIP and several other programs. There might be a very small amount of people who don't. This leaves the not so poor who don't have insurance and there is two ways to attack that. The first is all major drug company has a medication assistance program where they provide drugs at reduced costs or ever free of charge to people having problems affording it. The draw back is that you can't buy a new boat and claim the payment makes it so you can't afford it. The other way is SSI. AIDS would be counted as a disabling disease and in most every situation you would be eligible for some coverage under SSI.
That of course is US centric, but any country other then the US has the ability to get the same deals and programs going. The berne convention has provisions for violating patents in emergencies, Canada has pulled this exemption to make generic ciprocal or whatever it was during the anthrax scare. I suppose that if any other country couldn't provide the medication for it's population and it was a problem in their country, it could be seen as an emergency. But I don't think it would be advisable to manipulate it too much.
Can you say "Nobel Prize"? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Can you say "Nobel Prize"? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
That was about 5 years ago, but last year they were confirmed to have developed aids. This was much less publicized, I suppose because it's such a downer.
So it's still not really confirmed that anyone is immune to HIV - be careful (Then again, this is slashdot, so maybe you don't have to worry too much
Delta 32 gene marker is a natural immunity already (Score:5, Informative)
Read more:
wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
pbs [pbs.org]
Re:Delta 32 gene marker is a natural immunity alre (Score:2, Interesting)
2. You need two copies of CCR5 delta 32 for it to truly protect someone,
What?!? (Score:2, Interesting)
Just finished Jurassic Park (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Personally, I think Ian's statement about life always finding a way is a great movie line... and that's about it. What is life finding a way for? To live, and adapt? So what you're telling me is that life in general finds a way to live, to survive,
Re: (Score:2)
Because life that doesn't find a way to live, doesn't. As a result, all that's left is life that does.
it still doesn't work (Score:4, Informative)
Don't Celebrate Just Yet (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
"We"? The problem is the behavior of the African adults who choose to spread disease in Africa. Africans should be blamed for their behaviorial choices, including relentless behaviors that propagate disease. This isn't bigotry, it's putting blame where it is deserved.
Re: (Score:2)
Until the Virus Mutates (Score:4, Insightful)
It's called... (Score:5, Funny)
yeh (Score:2)
/. dept explanation (Score:2)
"lifealwaysfindsaway" (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't see anything here that even remotely sounds like this was a well-thought-out fix. These sorts of discoveries are usually by chance, try this, try that, and observe results. If it only takes one very minor change in the viruse's DNA (RNA?) to get around this, it won't take any time to work it out.
The more well-thought-out methods are more likely to succeed or at least to hold up longer. Now while Jurassic Park did find a way around it, the concept of stopping reproduction by making the entire population female, in theory is a very well thought out measure and is not trivial to bypass. You'd put a lot more stock in that than if they had say, injected the dinos with something that sterilized them. This looks more like a random attack with results that are not even remotely understood.
Re: (Score:2)
I bet no one will take that bet. Oo, a metabet.
Opposed to *mandatory* HPV vaccine (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The link you provide says that "Both the Family Research Council and the group Focus on the Family support widespread (universal) availability of HPV vaccines but oppose mandatory HPV vaccinations for entry to public school." HPV, like AIDS, is mostly associated with certain behaviors (sex outside of marriage between one man and one woman and illegal intravenous drug use).
Most young people have sex for the first time at about age 17 [guttmacher.org], but do not marry until their middle or late 20s. This means that young adults are at risk of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) for nearly a decade. Just to keep it fair and balanced, Fox News reports [foxnews.com] reports similar statistics (via the CDC). So "sex outside of marriage between one man and one woman" seems to be common enough to put forth the argument that vaccinations should be mandatory.
The fundies say they suppor
Re: (Score:2)
But it's already an epidemic.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as many as 50 percent of sexually active men and women become infected with Human Papillomavirus (HPV) at some point in their lives. Because the virus is so pervasive, by age 50, at least 80 percent of women will have acquired genital
Re: (Score:2)
So lesbians are god's chosen people, then?
Re: (Score:2)
Look at what they've done to the border, at least partly because of US interference.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
...
5) Don't ever get in an accident and need a blood transfusion, because the blood might be infected- especially in poorer nations.
6) Don't have a mother who had HIV while carrying you. That's a bad choice to make- don't inflict this kind of injury on yourself.
7) Don't be a woman and get raped by a man who has HIV. That's a bad choice to make- don't inflict this kind of injury on yourself.