New HIV model suggests killer T cell for vaccine
Limited success in modelling the behaviour of the complex, unusual and unpredictable HIV virus has slowed efforts to develop an effective vaccine to prevent AIDS.
Limited success in modelling the behaviour of the complex, unusual and unpredictable HIV virus has slowed efforts to develop an effective vaccine to prevent AIDS.
General Physics
Apr 29, 2010
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It has been more than 40 years since the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and scientists still don't fully understand how HIV enters and replicates in human cells, which has hindered the development of treatments.
Cell & Microbiology
Apr 30, 2024
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Each year, about 1 million individuals worldwide become infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. To replicate and spread the infection, the virus must smuggle its genetic material into the cell nucleus and integrate ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 25, 2024
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A multidisciplinary research team has produced a promising virus-fighting protein using a quick, portable process that could be easily deployed at the source of a future virus outbreak. The team includes researchers from ...
Biotechnology
Apr 12, 2023
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To many, EV stands for "electric vehicle." To researchers at Harvard University and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, it's shorthand for another vehicle—this one nanoscopic—that might help streamline the development ...
Bio & Medicine
Jan 30, 2023
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The crystal structure of a human endogenous reverse transcriptase has similarities to HIV reverse transcriptase, a well-known tractable drug target, which will help design drugs to treat cancer and other diseases, according ...
Biochemistry
Jun 30, 2022
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Much remains to be discovered on how the HIV-1 virus infects our cells. Scientists know that it slips past the defenses of our immune system, entering white blood cells to deliver its genetic payload and hijack the cell's ...
Biotechnology
Jun 16, 2022
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Researchers from Western University may have discovered a new meaning to the social media phrase, "going viral."
Evolution
May 5, 2022
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When is a container not just a container?
Molecular & Computational biology
Feb 23, 2022
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Viruses lurk in the gray area between the living and the nonliving, according to scientists. Like living things, they replicate but they don't do it on their own. The HIV-1 virus, like all viruses, needs to hijack a host ...
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 31, 2021
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Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a lentivirus (a member of the retrovirus family) that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in humans in which the immune system begins to fail, leading to life-threatening opportunistic infections. Infection with HIV occurs by the transfer of blood, semen, vaginal fluid, pre-ejaculate, or breast milk. Within these bodily fluids, HIV is present as both free virus particles and virus within infected immune cells. The four major routes of transmission are unsafe sex, contaminated needles, breast milk, and transmission from an infected mother to her baby at birth (Vertical transmission). Screening of blood products for HIV has largely eliminated transmission through blood transfusions or infected blood products in the developed world.
HIV infection in humans is now pandemic. From 1981 to 2006, AIDS killed more than 25 million people. HIV infects about 0.6 percent of the world's population. In 2005 alone, AIDS claimed an estimated 2.4–3.3 million lives, of which more than 570,000 were children. A third of these deaths are occurring in sub-Saharan Africa, retarding economic growth and increasing poverty. According to current estimates, HIV is set to infect 90 million people in Africa, resulting in a minimum estimate of 18 million orphans. Antiretroviral treatment reduces both the mortality and the morbidity of HIV infection, but routine access to antiretroviral medication is not available in all countries.
HIV primarily infects vital cells in the human immune system such as helper T cells (specifically CD4+ T cells), macrophages, and dendritic cells. HIV infection leads to low levels of CD4+ T cells through three main mechanisms: firstly, direct viral killing of infected cells; secondly, increased rates of apoptosis in infected cells; and thirdly, killing of infected CD4+ T cells by CD8 cytotoxic lymphocytes that recognize infected cells. When CD4+ T cell numbers decline below a critical level, cell-mediated immunity is lost, and the body becomes progressively more susceptible to opportunistic infections.
Eventually most HIV-infected individuals develop AIDS. These individuals mostly die from opportunistic infections or malignancies associated with the progressive failure of the immune system. Without treatment, about 9 out of every 10 persons with HIV will progress to AIDS after 10–15 years. Many progress much sooner. Treatment with anti-retrovirals increases the life expectancy of people infected with HIV. Even after HIV has progressed to diagnosable AIDS, the average survival time with antiretroviral therapy (as of 2005) is estimated to be more than 5 years. Without antiretroviral therapy, death normally occurs within a year.
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