HIV Is Evolving To Evade Human Immune Responses

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mercurial

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ScienceDaily (Feb. 28, 2009) — HIV is evolving rapidly to escape the human immune system, an international study led by Oxford University has shown. The findings, published in Nature, demonstrate the challenge involved in developing a vaccine for HIV that keeps pace with the changing nature of the virus.
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The study better describes HIV's ability to adapt by spelling out at least 14 different "escape mutations" that help keep the virus alive after it interacts genetically with immunity molecules that normally attack HIV.
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Full article
 
Thats the problem isn't it they can't develop a vaccine fast enough to kill the current version of it before it mutates and becomes a totally different version.

What I have heard is that they are trying to prolong the time that it doesn't affect you by an indefinate amount so you still have it but it doesn't affect you. Will have to see what comes from it though.
 
This is the kind of thread where we need PeterCH!

This is really interesting, albeit frightening.
 
The_Librarian said:
They should just create a vaccine to kill it first time without giving it time to evolve.
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I watched a documentary on why its really really hard to do this. Basically the HIV/AIDS virus sucks at consistency at replication, and they do a terrible job of replication their DNA so there are looooooooooooads of different mutations in every generation.

So while you can make something that you take the one day thats kills most of it in you, there still we be some, not matter what group of medicines you put together that will have slightly different genetic coding that will survive to repopulate the body.
 
lol ... sounds to me like Natural selection???? or am I totally wrong ....
 
Phenom i do not believe even millionaires can get the cure.

There is only one way to get rid of AIDS/ HIV:

Mass murder, this however i doubt is a viable option, the virus is just so wide spread.
 
Hey guys do you know any other theories that say how HIV/AIDS evolved-apparently it couldn't have evolved from apes because the strain that effect them gets killed by our immune system? So yeah theories and links if you can please :)

sorry to derail
 
Question: How high must the temperature of blood be before the HIVirus dies in the bloodstream.

Wouldn't it be possible to induce a high enough fever to kill the virus but not so high as to damage the blood cells, but cool down the brain to prevent a stroke.
 
Picard said:
Question: How high must the temperature of blood be before the HIVirus dies in the bloodstream.

Wouldn't it be possible to induce a high enough fever to kill the virus but not so high as to damage the blood cells, but cool down the brain to prevent a stroke.
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Thought about this as well as acidity option but I believe medics already thought of this...
 
A bone marrow stransplant would actually be better, painful but less trouble than cloning.

In 2008, German doctors announced that an HIV-infected leukemia patient had received a bone marrow transplant from a donor who is homozygous for the CCR5-Δ32 trait. After 600 days, the patient was healthy and had undetectable levels of HIV in the blood and in examined brain and rectal tissues.[10] Before the transplant, low levels of HIV X4, which does not use the CCR5 receptor, were also detected. Following the transplant, however, this type of HIV was not detected either, baffling doctors.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCR5-Δ32#CCR5-.CE.9432
 
In reading about the HIV virus becoming more drug resistant, it occured to me it may be responding to Evolutionary pressure:

Drug resistance in bacteria is an example of the outcome of evolutionary pressure. When a drug is used on a species of bacteria, those that cannot resist die and the survived others pass on the resistance gene to the next generation. So, the drug resistance increases over generations.

The Malaria parasite can exert a selective pressure on populations. This pressure has led to natural selection for erythrocytes carrying the sickle cell hemoglobin gene mutation (Hb S)—causing sickle cell anaemia—in areas where malaria is a major health concern, because the condition grants some resistance to this infectious disease. Therefore, the concept can be described as the application of Charles Darwin's principle of "survival of the fittest" (which actually should be understood as "extinction of the un-fittest") via some selection mechanism.

It is a quantitative description of the amount of change occurring in processes investigated by evolutionary biology, but the formal concept is often extended to other areas of research.

In population genetics, selection pressure is usually expressed as a selection coefficient.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_pressure

The long term effect may ultimately be a beneficial mutation as in the following example, in the short term effect the Bubonic plague desimated the population, the long term mutational effect renders the individuals literaly immune to HIV
For example, a specific 32 base pair deletion in human CCR5 (CCR5-Δ32) confers HIV resistance to homozygotes and delays AIDS onset in heterozygotes.[9] The CCR5 mutation is more common in those of European descent. One theory for the etiology of the relatively high frequency of CCR5-Δ32 in the European population is that it conferred resistance to the bubonic plague in mid-14th century Europe. People who had this mutation were able to survive infection; thus, its frequency in the population increased.[10] It could also explain why this mutation is not found in Africa where the bubonic plague never reached. Newer theory says the selective pressure on the CCR5 Delta 32 mutation has been caused by smallpox instead of the bubonic plague.[11]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation

The long term affect may in other words be a stronger immune system, less likely to collapse under the current secondary diseases that are normally responsible for killing off those with the HIV virus.
 
um, guys, these researches and developers are professors of medicine. they know their stuff. there isn't a theory that you can suggest that they haven't thought of and disproved already.

forget all talk of a cure. there is no virus in the entire history of modern medicine that we can *cure*. from the common cold to herpes simplex to cytomegalovirus to hepatitis.

all we can do is vaccinate. so you *can't* get it. problem is, it's impossible to vaccinate against because it behaves like no virus we have ever encountered.

IMO it's definitely natural selection. survival of the fittest has come to mean something else as time goes on. no longer is it about the most virile of the species, the most children etc...

Because we are exceeding our population for this planet at 6,000,000(+), the dumb need to die and the smart need to survive. true intelligence is shown by the ability to adapt to a situation. save for a few very terrible instances (rape / abuse / needle stick injuries / occupational exposures) HIV is actually the easiest virus not to catch, regardless of your lifestyle!

Promiscuous : wear a condom. wear 2 condoms (99% effective)
Junkie : use your own needles. don't share (100% effective), in addition see above rule
Intelligent : one partner. being faithful. have as much sex as you want, unconcerned.

Who needs a vaccine when you've got a brain?
 
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