Researchers Claim Success In Removing HIV From Living Cells (nature.com) 107
ffkom writes: A recent publication from German researchers claims success in removing the HI-Virus from living cells, showing a way to completely cure AIDS rather than just suppressing its symptoms (by lowering the amount of viruses) by permanent medication: "Current combination antiretroviral therapies (cART) efficiently suppress HIV-1 reproduction in humans, but the virus persists as integrated proviral reservoirs in small numbers of cells. To generate an antiviral agent capable of eradicating the provirus from infected cells, we employed 145 cycles of substrate-linked directed evolution to evolve a recombinase (Brec1) that site-specifically recognizes a 34-bp sequence present in the long terminal repeats (LTRs) of the majority of the clinically relevant HIV-1 strains and subtypes. Brec1 efficiently, precisely and safely removes the integrated provirus from infected cells and is efficacious on clinical HIV-1 isolates in vitro and in vivo, including in mice humanized with patient-derived cells. Our data suggest that Brec1 has potential for clinical application as a curative HIV-1 therapy."
Clinical trials are expected to start in Hamburg, Germany, soon.
HIV articles (Score:3, Insightful)
Are like battery/solar power articles. The best battery/HIV cure is just 2 years away. Always. But it never happens.
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Well, could be worse, like solar roadway articles.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yes. That shit does happen. A lot. About one in 10 successful lab tests works in animals and of those, about one in 10 will actually work in humans. Think it's not worth publishing of something works in mice?
On the other hand, how does one find out about treatments that work on humans but not on mice?
Re:HIV articles (Score:5, Insightful)
Not all research works out. Research is hard. If it wasn't then it would be a risk. If you only want finished products then camp out in a Apple store and stop reading Slashdot. This type of entitled whining is very very dull and adults should avoid it.
I'm running a research project right now. Guess what, bits of it aren't working as expected, but some of those failures are actually interesting and may save someone else a bunch of trouble.
Damon
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He's not complaining that the research didn't work out, rather that there's never any followup as to why not. Like you said, some of the failures are actually interesting, and it'd be great to hear about them.
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If he read the actual literature on the topic he'd be fine. Getting one's scientific information from the mainstream media is not very wise.
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Don't say that too often, you'll end up messing up the experiment and the mice will be both mad and get their revenge.
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We probably do need a better human analog for this kind of research. I can't help but wonder how many potential cures have been missed because the initial tests on mice failed where they would have had at least some degree of success on a human, with only a little modification to perfect it.
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Apparently there's a breed of sheep in Scotland that has like 75% human DNA. Nobody's sure how they managed it; those Scottish scientists are brilliant!
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Credit where it's due.
That was an international effort. Scotland, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Rolla Missouri all deserve some credit.
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Well, at least it is better than controlled thermonuclear fusion. That is always 25 years away.
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We didn't find a cure to HIV, however, people can now live with it. It is not the death sentence it used to be.
Like with batteries and solar power, things have improved a lot. It is just that it happened gradually so people didn't notice.
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Are like battery/solar power articles. The best battery/HIV cure is just 2 years away. Always. But it never happens.
Could be worse it could be like fusion
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I dunno? Is it really any better if it's 2 years away instead of 30? I'm reminded of that song by Annie... "It's always a day away."
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And, yet, solar prices have dropped dramatically and the number of installations is growing dramatically. Batteries have been getting better / cheaper.
And treatment for HIV is getting better, people are living longer, we keep learning more and more. Most experimental things never make it to the real world. However, the real world is better more and more solar / battery / HIV treatments, so your whining is stupid and pointless, and wrong.
Zombie Movies (Score:4, Funny)
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There was also that ST:TNG episode where the crew devolved.
Re:Zombie Movies (Score:4, Funny)
We're talking about a show where the technobabble frequently was little more than Geordy announcing "a concentrated tachyon beam tuned to the right frequency will yada yada yada...", with Data piping in "There's a 72.3% probability that that will blah blah blah and blow us all up", with Riker just rolling his eyes and thinking "I know this gig pays well, but...", and Picard finally saying "Make it so. I'll be in my quarters, but inform me immediately when yada yada yada makes blah blah blah happen." Troi, of course, will simple stand there looking like she just pinched a loaf in her form fitting stretch one piece body suit, while Dr. Crusher goes down to sickbay to deal with the inevitable injuries and psychoses brought on by the inevitable yada yada yadaing.
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It could be ether trek or sci fi. It can't be both.
Trek was a soap opera/western/court drama.
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I'm still a big fan of TOS, and the best Trek movies are still the TOS movies. The middle seasons of TNG were tolerable, but the beginning and the end seasons were dismal affairs. DS9 started out shaky, but found its own in the later seasons. The less said about Voyager and Enterprise, the shows that killed Star Trek, the better.
In the end, TOS just simply had the more challenging storylines. Even Shatner did a great job; daring handsome smart space captain, what else could you want. I didn't even mind the
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Uhh.. TNG episodes..
"Measure of a Man"
"Yesterday's Enterprise"
the one where Picard lives another entire life (when the gets the flute)..
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> specie's
I know this is off-topic but is that correct English? Err... I'm a bit unusual in that I actually enjoy the grammar tweakers (though I think they may want to lay off the meth) so... If one of you happen to have an opinion on this, that'd be awesome.
I'm thinking it's 'species' but then I realize that this mix of Latin and English is gonna only end up hurting my brain. So, my brain is old and feeble and avoiding damage is good and I'll just defer to someone else on this.
And, seeing as I'm off-top
Sharpen your pitchforks, hippie moms (Score:1)
This is genetic engineering tech, applied to humans. Are you now going to require that all the HIV patients using this treatment wear labels? You know, the scarlet letter of the left.
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"Insulting and acting arrogant doesn't win their minds"
What minds?
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I'm not sure how to articulate this but I beg to differ.
I do not think we're more intelligent today than we were "back then." We have access to more information, that is true. If you think you're more intelligent, how about we take away your modern amenities, strip you naked, and put you into the woods fifty miles from civilization - and you stay there for a year. We'll even give you some flint. Hell, you can even take up to six more mature adults but for every adult you must bring .5 (rounded up) children
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I'm really tired of having the term 'hubris' wheeled out for every advance in engineering, in this case the engineering of the human body. A new technique like this is hardly something we're just blundering into without thought. Based on our knowledge today, which is vastly greater than it was in your cited golden age, we take whatever precautions we reasonably can as a part of making the next bold step.
Call it hubris if you want, but adventure is part of human nature, and I'll gladly spend some of my karma
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Well, in my defense, look at how it was used... I'm not really sure how to articulate it more clearly. It's also important that you note what it is in response to. Taken out of context (which it seems to have been) really changes the tone. I don't know if you read at >0 or not but there's an AC post that it is in response to.
Unless, of course, you think we're at the apex of knowledge, correct, and the epitome of morality? In which case, I'd suggest an ego check. Every single person in the past has felt t
Hopefully It Really Works (Score:5, Interesting)
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Agreed.
Generally I had thought from way back when I did some genetics that killing the host cell was the only way to root out such integrated virii, but I'm not sure what's going on here: I must read TFA properly.
Rgds
Damon
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If this actually works it could be one of the most important advances in human medicine for decades. Hopefully it actually works and isn't the typical vaporware HIV cure.
Yeah... given that, AFAIK, humanity's record with curing viruses is Humans: 0, Viruses: everything, going to Humans: 1, Viruses: (everything-1) would be a pretty big deal, regardless of the virus involved.
Other resident viruses? (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't even RTFA yet, but I was wondering if this could have applications with other viruses that become long-term residents of the body. I'm thinking of things in the herpes family like... herpes, or chickenpox / shingles. The trick with most of these is long-term, mostly-dormant viruses hiding in the cells. If you can wake them up, the immune system can clear them, but they are effectively hidden inside the cells while quiescent.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Other resident viruses? (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't even RTFA yet, but I was wondering if this could have applications with other viruses that become long-term residents of the body. I'm thinking of things in the herpes family like... herpes, or chickenpox / shingles. The trick with most of these is long-term, mostly-dormant viruses hiding in the cells. If you can wake them up, the immune system can clear them, but they are effectively hidden inside the cells while quiescent.
HIV is a "retrovirus", which means the the virus's DNA integrates into the host's DNA. Some other viruses do this, but I think most don't. Some are more interesting, eg EBV is a virus from the herpes family which infects several different tissue types, and we know it can integrate into human DNA inside white blood cells, but I don't think there's proof that it can integrate inside liver or stomach cells.
As a retrovirus, the HIV sequence successfully breaks into a cell, then breaks into the cell's nucleus, then into one of the nucleus' chromosomes. (This is obviously harder to detect than viruses that stay inside the cell's cytoplasm, or that enter the nucleus but stay apart as their own episome [mini-chromosome].) That's what the article is referring to when they say their method recognises a 34-base pair long sequence - it is recognising that piece of the viral sequence in our own chromosome, and then uses something to snip out enough of the viral sequence that it can no longer make new copies of itself.
Obviously you want to be careful with any therapy that involves cutting up bits of human chromosomes... :)
Re:Other resident viruses? (Score:4, Insightful)
I am pretty sure we'll see more attempts on removing also other retro viruses from living human cells, if only because techniques like CRISPR/CAS9 have recently made "live editing" of genes so much more feasible.
Along with curing hereditary diseases, this is the obvious "good use case" for editing the genome in living humans.
I'm sure elsewhere in the world, researchers are also already working on the obvious "evil use cases", like breeding gene-doped athletes, unscrupulous soldiers, will-less slaves etc..
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will-less genetically enhanced sex slaves? i am in.
Good news, everyone! (Score:1)
N/T
Only 88% (Score:2)
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good (Score:5, Insightful)
Gotta disagree with you saying that 88% isn't good enough.
1) If current measures are reducing transmission of HIV to R values (new cases per existing case) of something like 1.2 or lower, this could bring it below the threshold of being able to increase in numbers and thus speed eradication.
2) If 88% of CURRENT HIV+ are completely cured, drugs and resources saved can be concentrated on the remaining 12%, thus reducing R values even further, speeding eradication.
3) 88% cure rate is a pretty massive reduction in human suffering, isn't it?
--PM
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In countries with single-payer healthcare this is nowhere near as much of a problem...
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Could be, but that's not to say there's not an immense effort to find a cure. That's going to be one for the history books, a Nobel prize or two and whatnot.
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It would be interesting to see if this method might be effective for other chronic viral infections, such as rabies or hepatitis infections that were found after symptoms began showing up where it's too late for vaccination.
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do yourself a favor and stay away from Nurses and or Doctors.
Hint some folks get AIDS by way of needle sticks while they are trying to help folks.
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Remind yourself of that when your unfaithful spouse contracts you with HIV. Or when your kid gets it from a needle when he's going through his rebel years.
If you don't want to live in a civilized society that takes care of everyone, maybe you should try moving over to Somalia. I heard they don't pay much taxes there and it's every man for himself.
Re: So Many (Score:1)
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1. You are incorrect about HIV transmission. In the US, yes, it _was_ largely a gay disease. It is not, and has not been, primarily about gay men for a long time now. In the places where it is most devastating (Africa), it has never been about men fucking each other in the ass.
2. The time / money spent on a disease depends on many factors, and it's a limited pool so, yes, spending money on HIV means less for others. But:
A. the effect of HIV worldwide has been huge, even compared to other diseases
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I would rather the funds go into solving cancer (immunotherapy is closing in) or a common world wide problem like malaria or systemd
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Sorry I was unclear: Yes, you are correct about the US. Most HIV positive people are males homosexuals, and that has not changed.
Looking at the world, it is not and has not been about gay men. Look at: https://www.avert.org/professi... [avert.org] . Most are in sub-Saharan Africa. Almost 5% of the population there is a carrier.