Scientists find potential 'off-switch' for HIV virus

[San Diego]

Mods, I'm not sure if this is LBN or not. If not, please accept my apologies and move to the correct forum. Thanks. -SD





Scientists find potential 'off-switch' for HIV virus

While there is no cure for lingering viral infections such as HIV and herpes, a recent study at Princeton University suggests it may be possible to deactivate such viruses indefinitely with the flick of a genetic switch.

Princeton scientists Leor Weinberger and Thomas Shenk hope their work will illuminate the processes by which human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and other viruses transition into dormant phases in their hosts. The researchers have discovered a specific genetic trigger that makes HIV fall into its latent phase, where the virus essentially hibernates, relatively harmlessly, but awaiting an opportunity to re-emerge and wreak havoc.

Weinberger and Shenk studied how an HIV protein, called Tat, plays a major part in initiating and also interrupting the cascade of chemical reactions that leads to full-blown infection. Based on their work and previous studies by others, they have proposed that the Tat protein and the enzymes that modify it serve as a "resistor," a component of an electrical circuit that reduces the flow of current.

"The resistor paradigm is a helpful way to think about how HIV enters and exits latency, and it might serve as a useful model for latent infections by other viruses, as well," said Shenk, Princeton's James A. Elkins Jr. Professor in the Life Sciences in the Department of Molecular Biology. "Understanding how to activate the Tat resistor to interrupt the reactions leading to viral infection could one day have repercussions in both the lab and the clinic."

Weinberger and Shenk share their findings in a research paper appearing in the Dec. 26 issue of the online journal Public Library of Science Biology.


http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-01/pu-sfp011107.php
More at link.

[Occulus]

1. Fantastic news!

This is really encouraging. Imagine a world in which having HIV means essentially nothing.

Now imagine a world in which we use this same method to conquer viruses of other types.

Simply amazing.

[Trillo]

2. I don't know if I would interpret the snippet

that having that "turned off" virus would mean essentially nothing. If "turned off" HIV does no damage, it's an improvement, but my guess is that it could still be passed to others.

Curiously, that would result in more money for whatever treatment was necessary to turn the particular gene on or off in each new host.

Perhaps this ultimately means that corporate will have economic control over each of our immune systems, and that survival for those infected will be dependent not upon nature or nature's God but upon corporate, the new master and ruler of all.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. I'd imagine that if a virus were "turned off"

then it wouldn't really spread to others, or the risk would be astronomically diminished. Since viruses need to infect cells in order to propagate.

[Nevernose]

11. While your paranoia is ustified

We have antibiotics for bacterial infections, right? We still use them, and while Big Pharm is certainly evil, they are certainly not "the master and ruler of us all." Maybe the difference is that HIV is ultimately fatal? Or that, barring a few more years of neo-conservatism, patents on drugs expire? I don't know.

I DO know that other viruses could ultimately be cured by this treatment -- viruses more contagious than HIV, even -- which could end up saving millions of lives every year. So count me in the "cynically optimistic category."

[Straight Shooter]

3. Hear, hear!

:thumbsup:

edit, oops meant to respond to "Fantastic News"

[enid602]

5. Bush

Let's hope they can find an 'off switch' for Bush, too. And soon.

[rodeodance]

6. whow

[sakabatou]

7. This is VERY promising.

[Richard Steele]

8. I hope this is for real. Recommended.

[xchrom]

9. good news -- may the ''off switch'' work and work soon.

[Ouabache]

10. Let's open a Disco if this is true

and let the fornication begin....

[JackBeck]

15. You're kidding, right?

There are approximately 45 million people worldwide infected with HIV, out of which 25 million live in Africa.

Learn your facts before spewing such transparent idiocy.

[NuttyFluffers]

12. i think i just read something like that re: Sylvia Browne...

gonna check Astro, Alternative Healing group on DU...

[papau]

13. Sounds like this would apply to any retro virus, n/t

n/t

[Lisa]

14. this sounds like a way cooler thing to spend money on than a "surge"!

Who's with me?

[truthisfreedom]

16. Well is it a switch or is it a potentiometer? They should make up their minds about the analogy.

It's either a switch or a volume knob.