HIV/AIDS
sa smith | September 25, 2009Im really a Debbie Downer when it comes to HIV-1 vaccines/'cures'/etc.
But I swear to gawd, I was just about to write a post on the strategy employed by the recent HIV-1 vaccine trial, without knowing this vaccine trial was even going on, cause I just read a really cool paper that did something very similar:
Cross-clade neutralizing antibodies against HIV-1 induced in rabbits by focusing the immune response on a neutralizing epitope
The basic idea of this paper, and the basic idea of this recent vaccine trial is the same.
1. Broad Prime - DNA
First, you 'prime' the immune response with…
sa smith | September 9, 2009Okay, for real, you guys-- unless I am on here screaming "OMFG WE CURED AIDS" "OMFG WE HAVE AN HIV VACCINE AHHHH" etc, promise me you all wont believe anything you read via AP or USATODAY or any of that crap?
There is a neat paper out in Science (not available even to normal Science subscribers, only *xpress* members *rolleyes*) on a couple of new, neat HIV-1 antibodies.
Broad and Potent Neutralizing Antibodies from an African Donor Reveal a New HIV-1 Vaccine Target
Now, this paper contains a lot of hard work. I think some of the things they did are weird ("first we did A, then we did B",…
sa smith | September 2, 2009While we are on the topic of IDiot Michael Behe, I thought now would be a good time to check in on our dear friend, HIV-1 Vpu!
What neat evolutionary tales do you have for us this week, HIV-1 Vpu?
Vpu directs the degradation of the human immunodeficiency virus restriction factor BST-2/Tetherin via a {beta}TrCP-dependent mechanism.
We discovered a while back that we have a whole 'new' component to our innate immune system we didnt know existed until we started to investigate the peculiar mutation rates within HIV-1 Vpu. This protein is called 'tetherin', and every cell in your body (not just…
sa smith | August 18, 2009I read a nice review article on viral evilution this weekend that really highlighted, for me, how clueless Creationists (especially Intelligent Design Creationists) are about evilution.
Antiviral resistance and impact on viral replication capacity: evolution of viruses under antiviral pressure occurs in three phases.
As we saw the last time IDiots tried to talk about HIV-1, Their Arguments Regarding Design focus on mutations rates-- HIV needs to make X mutations to escape a drug, HIV needs to make Y mutations to become climb a fitness peak, etc.
What theyre talking about (what theyre clueless…
sa smith | August 5, 2009A group of scientists from Mexico (Catholic population: >90%) have written a nice letter to Teh Pope in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. Its brilliant because its so simple and straightforward in its reasoning why Teh Pope should support condom use.
The Pope, condoms, and the evolution of HIV
Lets pretend we live in a magical world, where everyone who is infected with HIV-1 has access to any and all antiretrovirals they need, at no cost. Scientists will still need to be working round the clock to develop new anti-HIV drugs, because HIV-1 can always figure out a way to be resistant to our…
sa smith | August 3, 2009Nothing wakes me up on a rainy Monday morning like viral nomenclature!
So we have two kinds of HIV. HIV-1 we got from chimpanzees. HIV-2 we got from sooty mangabeys.
HIV-1 is further divided into Group M, N, and O, each resulting from a different zoonotic event from chimpanzees.
Several years ago, we identified SIV in wild gorillas. It groups with HIV-1 Group O.
Scientists have just published their findings from a patient they identified in 2004, who was infected with a 'new' kind of HIV. It clusters closer to SIVgorilla than anything else in a phylogenetic tree.
A new human…
sa smith | July 24, 2009When HIV-1 was first discovered, scientists were optimistic about a vaccine. Small pox, polio, measles, meh-- HIV-1 is a virus. We can handle viruses. Give us 6 months. No prob.
Well, >25 years later and we still dont have a damn vaccine. Strategies that worked against other viruses? HIV-1 doesnt bat an eyelash.
So weve been trying to think of new approaches to vaccine design. One of these ideas was to paste HIV-1 genes into adenovirus vectors. Adenoviruses are double-stranded DNA viruses, normally give you a cold-like illness, or make you a little poopy. Not real pathogenic. The…
sa smith | July 23, 2009Uh oh. Ive dont it again! Enabled teh cranks by talking about HIV-1and HIV Denialism with The Conspiracy Skeptic (scroll down to find the mp3)!
I was worried it would come off as too 'inside'-- Conspiracy Skeptic is an ERV reader, so we made some references that newbs might not be familiar with, but then CS hunted down, like, all the links to stuff we were chatting about!
Hope you all enjoy it, and you can leave feedback here!
sa smith | June 9, 2009Hey, you all want me to nom this? If you all are interested I will, but if yall are bored with HIV Denier claims Ill ignore him.
Or do you all want to nom him? *shrug* I dont mind.
sa smith | June 4, 2009Its been years ago, now, that I nomie-nomed up Behes stupid arguments about TEH EDGE UV EVILUTION and HIV-1. Geeze, what, two years ago? And to this day there are still things about Behe that make me literally *LOL*
For instance, Ive always loved Behes IDiotic perspective on viruses. You see, bacteria and humans and such contain elegantly Intelligently Designed molecular machines that are absolutely perfect. Viruses, on the other hand, are common hooligans that just 'gum things up':
Like throwing a wad of chewing gum into a finely tuned machine, its relatively easy to clog a system, blah…
sa smith | June 4, 2009Before I write this post, Im writing this major for realsies 'notice', because people have an amazing capacity to do stupid things:
The following study demonstrates how a component of green tea, EGCG, can help negate some factors involved in certain kinds of HIV-1 transmission.
This does not mean green tea stops HIV-1 transmission.
This does not mean that if you drink a ton of green tea, you cannot transmit to your partner.
This does not mean you can roll a green tea doobie, shove it up your vagaygay, and youre 'protected'. Same for shoving a One-A-Day Weight Smart up your butt, or dipping…
sa smith | June 2, 2009If you are HIV-1 positive, you cant have unprotected sex without telling your partner your HIV-1 status.
You cant get drunk with your new boy/girlfriend, go back to their place, and have a night of unprotected passion. You cant do that. Even if you are an HIV-1 Denier, you cant do that.
After you know (or in the case of Deniers 'are told') you are HIV-1 positive, it is your responsibility to tell your sexual partners you are positive. If your infection is well controlled with antiretrovirals and your viral load is undetectable, and say your partner really wants a child, they might decide…
sa smith | May 19, 2009Okay, so like, we suck at making HIV-1 vaccines. Im trying to make our vaccines more logical/efficacious/etc, but right now, we suck. No HIV-1 vaccine.
There are other ways to prevent HIV-1 infection via sex-- like condoms. YAY! HIV-1 doesnt 'swim'. It doesnt move on its own. It has to be carried by semen. But since semen cant go through a condom, YAY! No HIV-1 goes through either.
Well, condoms break. People dont always wear them right. And condoms are a male-centered HIV-prevention method. Not every woman on planet earth is in a position to say 'Honey, put on a condom.'
So we…
sa smith | May 1, 2009Um, so like, you now how 'HIV-1 doesnt evolve' and stuff?
Well, um, apparently its figuring out how to become invisible to an entire branch of our immune system.
Adaptation of HIV-1 to human leukocyte antigen class I
Oh shi-
Okay, there are 'flags' on the surface of every cell of your body-- MHC Class I molecules. On these 'flags' are little bits of protein the cell is making, telling passing by immune cells everything is fine.
When a retrovirus infects a cell, its genome/genes are treated exactly like the host genome/genes, so bits of retrovirus proteins get put on these flags. To passing…
sa smith | April 23, 2009Check out this AWESOME anti-science movie!
Outdated, discredited, or simply flat-out scientifically wrong hypotheses presented as real scientific controversies!
Pro-outdated-discredited-wrong 'scientists' persecuted, ostracized by TEH MAN! World cant handle the philosophical implications of their brilliant ideas!
SUPER AWESOME cellular animations!
Real scientists interviewed under false pretenses! Quotemined!
Pissed off scientists shows up at movie screening and all hell breaks loose!
Am I talking about EXPELLED II: Dembskis vs the Baylor Lunch Lady?
No!
Im talking about EXPELLED-except-…
sa smith | April 13, 2009Long-time readers of ERV know lots about HIV-1. You might think you dont, but you do. You know how 'drug resistance' works in a quasispecies. Most people dont. You know that AIDS is actually an exhausted hyperactive immune system, not a 'weakened' immune system. Most people dont. And you know some fun HIV-1 evolution facts, like where it came from, and what its doing now.
So I think you all will really like this Nature Reviews opinion piece about Vpu:
Is the high virulence of HIV-1 an unfortunate coincidence of primate lentiviral evolution?
Vpu is not a 'core' retroviral gene (gag, pol…
sa smith | April 2, 2009Helpful hint to Creationists:
Never mention HIV-1. Just dont. It will make your lives much easier if you just see the word "HIV" and associate it with an ass whooping. You dont really understand what HIV-1 is or how it works, so just shut up, cause you look like a worthless IDiot.
On the Discovery Institute Blog, EN&V, David Klinghoffer wrote a nice TARDalogue about how EXPELLED victim Ralph Seelke does research that proves evilution is a lie and Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior:
Seelke's work tests evolution's power to produce two necessary mutations in a case where the mutations,…
sporte | March 30, 2009If you haven't seen these, check out Jake Young's collection of videos showing T cells getting infected by HIV. The best one is at the bottom of the post.
sa smith | March 11, 2009Say youve got a problem. Maybe you cant figure out how to make a gene therapy vector that cant be detected by pre-existing antibodies that everybody already has. Maybe you are trying to figure out how to make an effective HIV-1 vaccine.
You could figure out which portions of AAV or HIV-1 are really important, try to make point mutations here and there, trying to get the virus to do what you want it to do... Or you could just let evolution do all the hard work for you-- Letting random mutation and natural selection identify a variant that can perform the tricks youre after.
A lab has already…
sa smith | February 2, 2009No Debbie Downer HIV-1 post today!
The gods of HIV-1 research have a new paper in PLOS Pathogens, and to me, its real good news for those of us looking for an HIV vaccine.
Inflammatory Genital Infections Mitigate a Severe Genetic Bottleneck in Heterosexual Transmission of Subtype A and C HIV-1
Im probably going to do several posts on this paper (lots of cool findings), but I want to get this one bit of good news out there before some ass 'science journalist' mangles it :P
Haaland et al followed about 2,000 (2,000) discordant couples (one partner was infected with HIV-1, the other was not).…