Page 1 of 1

#1 New cure for AIDS?

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 9:19 pm
by Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman
Alright, I ain't familiar with physorg.com, but this is not some kind of hoax, is it?

#2

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 10:51 pm
by SirNitram
No, not really. It's got the virus down hard, yes. This, however, has been seen before. The problem emerges with the fact that HIV is a distressly adaptive little bastard, and the strain may find a way to inure itself.

#3

Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2007 6:52 pm
by Mayabird
I do hope it works, but HIV is highly adaptive, as Nitram points out. Its replication is very sloppy, leading to a rapid mutation rate. This has foiled attempts at an HIV vaccine for years, since a vaccine can be made for one strain, but the virus quickly mutates and makes the vaccine worthless.

Hopefully it'll extend people's lives longer and make them less miserable until some sort of cure is actually found.

#4

Posted: Sun Jan 07, 2007 1:48 am
by Comrade Tortoise
If even a few virus particles can evade the drug, the virus will remain dormant in the system, and restart replication.

The only real way to take out the virus that I can think of is to use viral mediated gene therapy to insert a gene that will help defend against the disease

#5

Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 9:07 pm
by Mayabird
According to my evolution textbook, HIV has the highest mutation rate of any known virus or organism. :shock: It's like the perfect disease, from a disease standpoint. Scary.