Scientists Discover Antibody That Neutralizes 98% of HIV Strains (inquisitr.com) 90
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Inquisitr: The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) announced this week that a "remarkable" breakthrough has been made in the study of preventing and treating the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that leads to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), according to a press release posted on the agency's official website. The breakthrough centers around the discovery of a powerful antibody named N6 that is highly effective in both binding to the surface of the HIV virus and neutralizing it. The former has proved elusive in the past. "Identifying broadly neutralizing antibodies against HIV has been difficult because the virus rapidly changes its surface proteins to evade recognition by the immune system," the press release explains. The antibody was initially discovered in an HIV-positive person and has since proven to potentially neutralize 98 percent of HIV isolates, "including 16 of 20 strains resistant to other antibodies of the same class," according to the press release. Researchers have had previous success with other antibodies, but N6 appears to be more effective. The new discovery has potential benefits far beyond preventing and treating HIV as well. Studying exactly how N6 works could potentially lead to breakthroughs in other anti-viral antibodies. "Findings from the current study showed that N6 evolved a unique mode of binding that depends less on a variable area of the HIV envelope known as the V5 region and focuses more on conserved regions, which change relatively little among HIV strains," NIAID explains. "This allows N6 to tolerate changes in the HIV envelope, including the attachment of sugars in the V5 region, a major mechanism by which HIV develops resistance to other VRC01-class antibodies. Due to its potency, N6 may offer stronger and more durable prevention and treatment benefits, and researchers may be able to administer it subcutaneously (into the fat under the skin) rather than intravenously. In addition, its ability to neutralize nearly all HIV strains would be advantageous for both prevention and treatment strategies."
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Oh look, a Nevada desert conspiracy guy. Just the type I was using as an example the other day in the thread on anti-science attitudes.
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I recognised the nouns, verbs and prepositions are in sentence structure.
The actual meaning of what you wrote still eludes me.
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You should increase the voltage on your treatments.
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Devin Waller
Nov 1
to me
Hi,
Thank you for your interest in the California Science Center and your generous donation offer. It seems that your grandfather’s drafting set has a rich history and will be an ideal artifact for static display for the appropriate museum. We appreciate your consideration of the Science Center as a donor organization. However, we are simply not able to accept this item at this time. I’d like to recommend that you contact Cindy Macha, President of the Western Museum of Fligh
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William Francis Deverell
Nov 14
to me
Thanks Mr. Hoenig – the Huntington very rarely takes on material artifacts like these, as interesting as they are – perhaps Cindy Macha will be in touch with her thoughts, too.
Best regards,
Bill Deverell
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You should increase the voltage on your treatments.
There are just 5 things I care about in the Lake Tahoe basin: Water, lumber, uranium, gold and silver, and the local Sheriff's office (EDSO) has been made fully aware of that. What are they going to do? Take the Pentagon's guns away? Big pharma cartel style sales of pills for depression, paranoid schitz, or psychosis of unknown origin to the Pentagon? I'd love to see that. I don't fit any of the above diagnosis, however might I suggest writing out a diagnosis of "Really f*cking pist, is talking, and h
Sigh. Way too old for a career change. (Score:2)
One of my biggest academic regrets... no organic chem, no serious cellular biology. Such an exciting time in those fields these days.
Re:Sigh. Way too old for a career change. (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess so. My kid, who was working on a PhD in Math (like her mom) suddenly up and decided to change to some kind of "bio-mathematics" that has all sorts of the stuff you mentioned. Since my academic career was strictly in the Humanities, I don't have a clue about any of it, but it sounds like there's a lot of stuff going on. Some big lab recruited her to work there while she's finishing her degree and damned if she's not making as much as an associate professor. And she'll be graduating without a dime of debt, which makes Mom and I happy, since we told her we'd cover the cost of her education. Maybe now I can buy that sports car.
Me, I wish I'd learned HVAC. People will always need ducts in their houses, and heat and cooling. And there's very little math, which is good.
Re:Sigh. Way too old for a career change. (Score:4, Insightful)
And there's very little math, which is good.
How little you know about HVAC.
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I just want to bend sheet metal. I have a TI-83 to do the math.
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People with higher education tends to get kids a bit later and with their kid trying PhD studies and changing field I think it is pretty safe to guess that he is old enough to think about what to do when he retires.
It's still never to late. Maybe do something interesting while "retired", and this would fit the bill.
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It's always too late to think about retiring. Money isn't going to fly out of your ass just because you're old. If anything, it becomes much harder to get.
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You've already earned your money
Earned yes. But it doesn't come back once it's been spent.
Once you reach that point where retirement is feasible,
I will die at my desk sadly. Social Security will be totally dismantled or broke by the time I reach that golden age the Govt keeps moving back.
I will be lucky to roll my wheelchair off a cliff before I am in diapers.
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...and damned if she's not making as much as an associate professor.
Well, judging by the contents of my (virtual) salary envelope they're probably underpaying her then... :-) (I have recent bachelor's and master's making more than I do).
Just saying that "associate professor" may not be setting the bar very high when it comes to payment for services rendered. (Depending on lots, and lots of factors of course, including field and where in the world etc., to on a more serious note).
Me, I wish I'd learned HVAC. People will always need ducts in their houses, and heat and cooling. And there's very little math, which is good.
I remember when I was a PhD student doing "the grind" and how we all used to say that we should
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Consider coding for projects like Rosetta Protein Structure Design. It's open source and can be used to design antibodies. They need good coders.
https://www.rosettacommons.org
Re: Sigh. Way too old for a career change. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, worked great for the #BringBackOurGirls.
"Awareness," the participation trophy of activism.
98 (Score:5, Interesting)
>"Identifying broadly neutralizing antibodies against HIV has been difficult because the virus rapidly changes" ... "since proven to potentially neutralize 98 percent of HIV isolates"
So the remaining 2% quickly change to be resistant and in a few years we are back where we started again? 98% sounds great for some things. But if you had 200 fleas and got rid of 396, those remaining 4 can potentially become 200 again pretty quickly.
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Depends how widespread those strains are. It's not the 1980s, so improved detection/prevention could buy us quite some time, during which medicine still gets to progress.
Re:98 (Score:5, Insightful)
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You just made the argument that "It is better to have millions suffer from HIV because the large amount keeps down the costs."
I'm pretty sure those who can be cured would be willing to foot the bill for the remaining.
Are you perhaps working for the Trump administration?
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No it means more and less than that (Score:5, Informative)
Well not exactly.
The discovery of an antibody that targets a non-variable site is important in several ways. I'm not sure how good a therapeutic drug it will make. Antibodies are huge and hard to make so depending on the dose required it could be prohibitive to inject enough of the stuff in an active form to do any good. Massive proteins often are lousy drugs. THat's not to say that antibodies can't be used as drugs. There's a lot that are on the market now, for example Humira. But that's going after receptors in the host not viruses so it's a different regime.
But what is good about this is three things. You learn where you can bind on the virus, you learn the binding mode of the contact points, and finally you learn that that binding mode is protective across most HIV. It's not uncommon to have something that binds HIV well but fails to be protective. Given this structural knowledge one can now try to design either small molecules or other smaller proteins than an anti-body that bind in a similar manner and target either the same binding site or the same origins of protection.
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Given this is how pretty much every drug on the market works, what is your problem with it?
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>But if you had 200 fleas and got rid of 396
Obviously I made a typo on that and meant 400. But apparently everyone got my meaning.
In any case, lots of good replies about how although this isn't a cure, it can help to focus research and effort on the remaining 2% and help lots of people in the meanwhile.
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Two typos. The first one, and the "400" in the quoted text. 396 of 400 is 99%, not 98.
Obviously, your typo was the 396, which should have been 196....
Virtual Light (Score:2)
So, they've found James Delmore Shapely [antonraubenweiss.com]. Took them a while longer than Gibson thought, but the good part (I guess) is that the Big Quake is still up there in the future.
In fairness, this an improvement for BeauHD (Score:1, Offtopic)
The other day I said that BeauHD posts crap. I compared him to that AKB guy who used to post ridiculous diatribes about hosts files, becuase he was apparently unaware of why hosts files didn't work and had to be replaced by DNS.
Anyway, I talked shit about BeauHD's submissions, so it's only fair that I now acknowledge this is a very interesting story that does belong on Slashdot. Much better than some other submissions.
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He wrote "HIV virus". *Any* story or summary that uses the phrase "HIV virus" is absolute crap and should be treated as such. I glanced through the paper itself and its also really not that great. Its an evolution of earlier work done looking for broadly neutralizing antibodies against HIV, they did some basic in vitro work to show that their antibody could potently interact with a variety of strains of HIV, then did a bunch of structural work. The paper is missing any in vivo work and it makes one wond
the 98% of strains they know about. (Score:2)
gratuitious prepositions are bad. Where is it at? (Score:2)
> preposition ending. i know.
Ending with a GRATUITOUS is bad. "Where is Bob at?" means exactly the same thing as "where is Bob?", so you shouldn't add "at" to the end, as it serves no purpose.
http://blog.oxforddictionaries... [oxforddictionaries.com]
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Where Bob at?
Why bother with the gratuitous "is"?
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His friend came along, saw what he was doing, and said, "Of course they're fresh, what kind of jerk sells unfresh fish?"
The man decided he was right, and crossed out the word fish.
The friend thought a bit and said, "Well........why say for sale? Why would you have fish in your store if they're not for sale?"
So,,,,,,,,,the man crossed off the words 'for sale,' becoming more efficient.
Then his friend thought some more, and s
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Your man redundantly crossed out fish twice. (yeah, I guess I could have left out redundantly)
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The fda will see to that. Too much money lost by the medical profession
In only a few more weeks, the FDA will no longer be controlled by the Democrat/Republican party donor base. Things are about to get interesting.
Congrats NIAID (Score:4, Interesting)
Let me be the first (seriously, the first despite so many other assholes who already posted) to congratulate them on this discovery. Sadly, I'm quite sure this is not a cure since I don't see how it would affect infected cells, but at least it can prevent the spread both within the body and transmission to other people.
So what's the catch? (Score:2)
Good discovery (Score:2)
Corrected headline: (Score:5, Funny)
Corrected headline:
"Persons Immune System Discovers Antibody That Neutralizes 98% of HIV Strains; Scientists Take Credit"
Betting pool on how long it takes to patent, and who gets the patent, starts now...
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Betting pool on how long it takes to patent, and who gets the patent, starts now...
The antibody was certainly patented before publication, or some lawyers will be fired.
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Nah, the headline is correct. It says they "Discovered" it, not "Invented it". If you find an island, earth didn't discover it. Earth created it. You discovered it.
Also, regarding patents, since this was discovered by a government agency (NIAID), hopefully there will be no patent at this stage, or at least not one that requires leasing. This is one of the great things about government funded research that is actually done by a government organization, rather than farmed out to the for-profit community.
Trump (Score:1)
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Hope so, they are stealing american jobs: J Huang, BH Kang, E Ishida, T Zhou et al.