HIV/AIDS breakthrough!

[kage69]

A former coworker of mine contracted HIV a number of years ago, and even though he has so far enjoyed a Magic Johnson like response to it, news like this is great as I know most people who have it aren't that lucky (duh) Anyway: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100201/hl_nm/us_aids_hiv_enzyme



"Scientists say they have solved a crucial puzzle about the AIDS virus after 20 years of research and that their findings could lead to better treatments for HIV."

"When the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infects someone, it uses the integrase enzyme to paste a copy of its genetic information into their DNA, Cherepanov explained in the study published in the Nature journal on Sunday.

Some new drugs for HIV -- like Isentress from Merck & Co and elvitegravir, an experimental drug from Gilead Sciences -- work by blocking integrase, but scientists are not clear exactly how they work or how to improve them.

The only way to find out was to obtain high-quality crystals -- a project that had defeated scientists for many years.

"When we started out, we knew that the project was very difficult, and that many tricks had already been tried and given up by others long ago," said Cherepanov.

"Therefore, we went back to square one and started by looking for a better model of HIV integrase which could be more amenable for crystallization."

The researchers grew a crystal using a version of integrase borrowed from another retrovirus very similar to its HIV counterpart.

It took more than 40,000 trials for them to come up with one a crystal of sufficiently high quality to allow them to see the three-dimensional structure, they said.

They tested the Merck and Gilead drugs on the crystals, and were able to see for the first time how the medicines bind to, and block, integrase."

----------------------


Very cool, the sooner we get this nut cracked, the sooner we can devote more resources to the next likely health epidemic, diabetes. Occurrences of religious bigots proclaiming AIDS to be god's divine retribution on queers should dry up too hopefully.

 

[StageLeft]

There have been many so-called break throughs. I guess I'd pay more attention if I had the HIV but really headliners come out like this all the time. One day it will be valid but the real break through is when somebody creates a drug that has a huge and actual impact on either curing or preventing it. Not some new step they achieved in a lab, many, many steps removed from the final product.

 

[amdhunter]

There have been many so-called break throughs. I guess I'd pay more attention if I had the HIV but really headliners come out like this all the time. One day it will be valid but the real break through is when somebody creates a drug that has a huge and actual impact on either curing or preventing it. Not some new step they achieved in a lab, many, many steps removed from the final product.

There's no money in a cure.

 

[Blackjack200]

There have been many so-called break throughs. I guess I'd pay more attention if I had the HIV but really headliners come out like this all the time. One day it will be valid but the real break through is when somebody creates a drug that has a huge and actual impact on either curing or preventing it. Not some new step they achieved in a lab, many, many steps removed from the final product.

Uhh, what are you talking about? HIV/AIDS research has yielded a staggering variety of effective treatments. If you got AIDS 30 years ago you were dead in 24 months. Today, assuming you have access to the expensive drugs, you can have a normal, healthy life.

 

[ichy]

Uhh, what are you talking about? HIV/AIDS research has yielded a staggering variety of effective treatments. If you got AIDS 30 years ago you were dead in 24 months. Today, assuming you have access to the expensive drugs, you can have a normal, healthy life.

Considering what HIV drugs do to you I wouldn't call it a normal life, but for most people today AIDS is kind of like Type 1 diabetes, an unfortunate but manageable condition. 20 years ago it was more like having a brain tumor.

 

[Blackjack200]

Considering what HIV drugs do to you I wouldn't call it a normal life, but for most people today AIDS is kind of like Type 1 diabetes, an unfortunate but manageable condition. 20 years ago it was more like having a brain tumor.

This is true, it's not exactly taking 2 aspirin a day. I just think that characterizing the last 30 years of progress on HIV/AIDS as a bunch of laboratory breakthroughs with little real life effectiveness is ridiculous.

 

[lothar]

Good to see GILD being up there at the top.

 

[HumblePie]

There's no money in a cure.

unfortunately, and sadly, this.

Anyone else still remembers the crap over Ulcers and stomach bacteria?
http://www.yourhealthbase.com/ulcer_drugs.htm

 

[Modelworks]

I was watching a BBC documentary on why virus kill .
They are really some amazing organisms. They gave the details on why HIV is so difficult to treat. HIV isn't difficult to cure because it is the perfect virus but because it is one of the most imperfect virus. It copies itself over and over and every time it makes a copy it gets the copy wrong never copying itself correctly. So making a vaccine today wouldn't work by tomorrow .

One of the researchers commented that virus are one of the most interesting creations because in order to live it needs a host and it cannot kill the host or the virus dies too so it is a sort of symbiosis.

 

[StageLeft]

Uhh, what are you talking about? HIV/AIDS research has yielded a staggering variety of effective treatments. If you got AIDS 30 years ago you were dead in 24 months. Today, assuming you have access to the expensive drugs, you can have a normal, healthy life.

But this is via a cocktail. There has been no silver bullet yet.

 

[KMFJD]

The president of South Africa says all you need to do to prevent aids is to take a shower after unprotected sex with an infected person....

 

[Thump553]

Good to see GILD being up there at the top.

Another GILD shareholder here as well.

 

[kage69]

The president of South Africa says all you need to do to prevent aids is to take a shower after unprotected sex with an infected person....

Didn't the Vatican proclaim condom use to promote AIDS?

There's all kinds of WTF out there. One from India was particularly scary: Got syphillis? Just go rape a dog and you're cured!

ugh.

 

[nick1985]

The president of South Africa says all you need to do to prevent aids is to take a shower after unprotected sex with an infected person....

link?

 

[dullard]

link?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4879822.stm

The really bad part was that this guy was an improvement over the previous one that denied there was even a link between AIDS and HIV.

But, until basic sanitation is taken care of, this is all a moot point. Few of the poor in Africa will use condoms without FIRST getting reliable and private trash collection service. Why? Because as it stands, everyone sees what everyone else throws in the trash. Society there says you should only use a condom if you are cheating. Thus, only cheaters throw away condoms and everyone knows who is cheating. The result: no one uses condoms and HIV is rampant.

To solve this problem, we either have to:
1) do very expensive AIDS research with low chance of success,
2) have very difficult social change to remove the stigma of using condoms also with a low chance of success, or
3) provide reliable private trash collection services. This would be cheap and easy. Yet, no one would fund that. Millions of lives would be saved if only we'd pay for a few garbage trucks instead.

 

[Amused]

. Today, assuming you have access to the expensive drugs, you can have a normal, healthy life.

For a great many who are on the cocktail the side effects include:

Lipodystrophy
Lipoatrophy
Peripheral neuropathy
Osteoporosis
Astronomical lipid counts and the heart disease that goes along with it.
Severe psychological side effects the least of which are terrible nightmares and extreme iritability.
Liver failure.
Kidney failure.
Extreme and deadly skin reactions.

The list could go on for another couple dozen things, but I think you get the point.

You see, most of the drugs destroy mitochondrial DNA.

Also, many have drug resistent virus and do not respond at all.

In short, while they have come a long way "a normal healthy life" is in NO way assured by the drugs.

 

[nick1985]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4879822.stm

He is not their president

 

[werepossum]

For a great many who are on the cocktail the side effects include:

Lipodystrophy
Lipoatrophy
Peripheral neuropathy
Osteoporosis
Astronomical lipid counts and the heart disease that goes along with it.
Severe psychological side effects the least of which are terrible nightmares and extreme iritability.
Liver failure.
Extreme and deadly skin reactions.

The list could go on for another couple dozen things, but I think you get the point.

You see, most of the drugs destroy mitochondrial DNA.

Also, many have drug resistent virus and do not respond at all.

In short, while they have come a long way "a normal healthy life" is in NO way assured by the drugs.

Ouch! Still, this seems to be a very useful breakthrough in our basic understanding of how viruses, and the things that stop or inhibit them, behave. That's a good thing.

 

[dullard]

He is not their president

Do you have a point? Or are you just blathering for the sake of it? Is there some fine technicality that you want to make on this issue? And does that technicality affect the important impact of a top official saying what he said?

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Drug companies need to stop researching and just make cheap drugs. That way we can lower the costs of health care and it has the positive effect of removing the sickest from our population.

Health care reform you can believe in.

It's what's asked for, and that's what people just may get.

 

[werepossum]

Drug companies need to stop researching and just make cheap drugs. That way we can lower the costs of health care and it has the positive effect of removing the sickest from our population.

Health care reform you can believe in.

It's what's asked for, and that's what people just may get.

That is socialized medicine, although approved government research would still be funded. Mostly parting out babies and blastocysts I imagine.

 

[OutHouse]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4879822.stm

The really bad part was that this guy was an improvement over the previous one that denied there was even a link between AIDS and HIV.

But, until basic sanitation is taken care of, this is all a moot point. Few of the poor in Africa will use condoms without FIRST getting reliable and private trash collection service. Why? Because as it stands, everyone sees what everyone else throws in the trash. Society there says you should only use a condom if you are cheating. Thus, only cheaters throw away condoms and everyone knows who is cheating. The result: no one uses condoms and HIV is rampant.

To solve this problem, we either have to:
1) do very expensive AIDS research with low chance of success,
2) have very difficult social change to remove the stigma of using condoms also with a low chance of success, or
3) provide reliable private trash collection services. This would be cheap and easy. Yet, no one would fund that. Millions of lives would be saved if only we'd pay for a few garbage trucks instead.

Africa is such a fucked up country. i say lit ignorance kill off the dumb.

 

[OutHouse]

For a great many who are on the cocktail the side effects include:

Lipodystrophy
Lipoatrophy
Peripheral neuropathy
Osteoporosis
Astronomical lipid counts and the heart disease that goes along with it.
Severe psychological side effects the least of which are terrible nightmares and extreme iritability.
Liver failure.
Kidney failure.
Extreme and deadly skin reactions.

The list could go on for another couple dozen things, but I think you get the point.

You see, most of the drugs destroy mitochondrial DNA.

Also, many have drug resistent virus and do not respond at all.

In short, while they have come a long way "a normal healthy life" is in NO way assured by the drugs.

sounds like most of the drugs ad on TV.

 

[Cogman]

There's no money in a cure.

unfortunately, and sadly, this.

Anyone else still remembers the crap over Ulcers and stomach bacteria?
http://www.yourhealthbase.com/ulcer_drugs.htm

ugg, Yes, there is money in a cure, LOTS of money. Especially if the disease is widespread enough. Do you think an AID cure would eliminate AIDs? Heck no, it would stick around for several years longer, 10+. A cure would pretty much guarantee a company a huge payout almost instantaneously + publicity that you and PR that you can't buy.

Why do you think we spend billions on AIDs/cancer research? It is all for the cure, because you can bet, if someone gets it before you, they will produce it, and you will miss out on the profits from it.

 

[nick1985]

Do you have a point? Or are you just blathering for the sake of it? Is there some fine technicality that you want to make on this issue? And does that technicality affect the important impact of a top official saying what he said?

Mainly blathering for the sake of it, however, if I was the president of S.A. and someone was spreading FUD about me saying showering to prevent AIDS I wouldn't like it much.