Comments on: Why one mutation can protect people from HIV

By: gehringer

gehringer — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 20:40:00 +0000

Hmm…any known way to temporarily turn the receptor off, wait for the HIV to flush out of the system, and then let the receptor turn back on?

By: Alissa Mower Clough

Alissa Mower Clough — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 20:01:00 +0000

It most certainly is, and that’s the basis for a story I wrote (SHAMELESS PLUG) called “Yersinia (a gram-negative romance).”

By: Flarn Buckholter

Flarn Buckholter — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 17:29:00 +0000

We’ve suspected this CCR/HIV connection for years, but blocking a chemokine receptor (CCR5 is C-C motif chemokine receptor) affects an immune cell’s ability to respond to signals. APCs might not migrate properly or phagocytose properly in response to infection.

You’d beat HIV and fall victim to a bacterium…Global blocking of a chemokine receptor is not good.

By: Alissa Mower Clough

Alissa Mower Clough — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 15:29:00 +0000

Now how can people get tested for the mutation if they want to become bone marrow donors?

By: Patrick J. Szucs Jr.

Patrick J. Szucs Jr. — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 12:21:00 +0000

The two new patients did not receive the Delta-32 mutation according to an NPR article.

“Not necessarily, the Boston researchers say. The donor cells their patients got did notlack the receptor. So what’s happening with them must be different from the Berlin patient.” Richard knox.

By: billstewart

billstewart — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 00:40:00 +0000

Bone-marrow transplants are pretty radical treatment. Now that we know how this works, does that mean it’d be possible to make a CCR-5 blocker drug that would help people with normal T-cells?

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 22:23:00 +0000

It’s not a cure. It’s a drug that might have some effect in some cases.

By: luisella

luisella — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 21:32:00 +0000

Well the cure for cancer has been discovered in 2006. It’s a dirty chip drug used for diabetes, but no Big Pharma would support the trials because its patent expired in 2002.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/04/05/health/diabetes-drug-fights-cancer/index.html

By: danegeld

danegeld — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 17:58:00 +0000

That rendering looks like a plushy-aids virus. Can we get the knitted?

By: Guido

Guido — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 17:56:00 +0000

He died to provide us with the cure. Fundies made him a martyr.

By: Christopher Jensen

Christopher Jensen — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 16:28:00 +0000

he’s merely pretty lucky. if the virus inside him wasn’t R5-tropic, the effect wouldn’t have made a difference.

By: tré

tré — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 16:27:00 +0000

An a-ha moment, you say? http://youtu.be/djV11Xbc914

By: NelC

NelC — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 15:40:00 +0000

Surely, springing open the HIV cell is only half the story? You also have to open the T-cell, so that the retroviral genes get into it?

By: BunnyShank

BunnyShank — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 15:28:00 +0000

I wonder if the Delta-32 mutation is the same mutation that makes people immune to bubonic plague, and if the cell process is the same as with HIV.

By: Gilbert Wham

Gilbert Wham — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 15:12:00 +0000

JD Shapely…

By: RKTR ♫soundcloud.com/rktr

RKTR ♫soundcloud.com/rktr — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 14:38:00 +0000

Pretty cool to see that years of research are finally paying off!