HIV-1
Tag archives for HIV-1
Two more HIV-1 patients kind of sort of cured-ish maybe
Posted by ERV on July 27, 2012 Many ERV readers are aware of ‘The Berlin Patient’– The fellow who has seemingly cleared the HIV-1 virus after receiving a bone marrow transplant to treat his lymphoma (we say ‘seemingly’ because we dont really know what ‘cured’ is with HIV yet). The Berlin Patient was a rather unique case in that he got a…
HIV-1, babies, and breast-feeding
Posted by ERV on July 24, 2012 Despite the fact that the radically religious and conservative politicians like to focus on homosexual males and IV drug use leading to HIV-1 infection, the fact of the matter is, heterosexual women are the fastest growing group of HIV-1 patients in the US (and Africa, and Asia)– even women in committed relationships (usually considered ‘low…
HERVs vs HIV-1 and cancer– Another step forward
Posted by ERV on July 3, 2012 If you are reading this blog, you already know all about how a huge portion of your genome is parasitic junk DNA (~40-45%), a fraction of which is retroviral junk (ERVs, ~9%). If youre new here… SURPRISE! Sure, we have a gene here, a promoter there (maybe) that was domesticated for human genome use, but…
Nobel vs Nobel
Posted by ERV on June 20, 2012 Luc Montagnier was once one of Gods of Science. Dude was head of one of the groups of scientists who ultimately discovered HIV-1 was the cause of the AIDS pandemic. Wonderful science that amazes me– The things they could do when we didnt know anything, when they didnt have the technology that I have– Amazing.…
Bone-marrow transplants as a ‘cure’ for AIDS? IV
Posted by ERV on June 14, 2012 Welp, I cant blame this one on pop news. The latest controversy over the HIV-1 patient functionally cured of HIV/AIDS shouldnt be that big of a deal. Scientists are asking the question “What does it mean to be ‘cured’ of HIV? What is our definition of ‘cured’? How will we know ‘cured’ when we see…
Novel biochemistry in Bovine immunodeficiency virus
Posted by ERV on June 13, 2012 Many roads lead to Rome– there is no one ‘right’ way to solve an evolutionary hurdle. Viruses encounter the same evolutionary ‘problems’, but have evolved lots and lots and lots of different solutions to the exact same problems. Random chance of mutations + the bumbling blindness of natural selection (‘good enough’ is selected, not ‘BEST!’)…
Epic disaster in HIV vaccine world
Posted by ERV on May 31, 2012 I can think of at least two ‘worst nightmares’ for vaccine designers. Your vaccine looked super in animal models and such… but it turns out to be directly harmful to people. And not ‘some’ people. All people. Your vaccine actually does the opposite of what you want it to do– instead of preventing the disease,…
Gene therapy might actually work for HIV-1 infection
Posted by ERV on May 25, 2012 If you had asked me 6 years ago about using gene therapy to fight HIV/AIDS, I would have given you a nice rant about how expensive it is, how non-viable it is in the places that need anti-HIV strategies the most, how dangerous it can be, and I would have been damn offended you even…
Updates on the past few posts:
Posted by ERV on May 18, 2012 I have a some updates on a few stories I covered the past couple of weeks: Some people who proclaim to have ‘chronic fatigue syndrome’ show everyone just how NOT CRAZY they are… by transcribing my entire interview with Conspiracy Skeptic by hand (they cant hold a job you see– ‘brain fog’) and comparing me…
Why ask scientists for ideas when politicians are so great at making things up?
Posted by ERV on May 15, 2012 There are two groups of people I would be perfectly happy if they all just disappeared. Like, right now. 1– Politicians 2– Clergy/reverends/pastors/whatevers Even the shittiests, hipsterish of musicians contributes more to positive to society than those two groups of people. Stephanie Meyer has contributed more positive to society than those two groups of people.…