An AIDS Vaccine???

[Vast LWC]

Wow, this has only been tested in mice so far, but if this works in humans like it did for them, this looks like it may turn out to be a vaccine/cure for AIDS!


Hope for new AIDS protection seen in mouse study - Boston.com


All I know is, if it works, there's going to be one hell of a party on the day they announce the cure.

 

[Vast LWC]

Of course, the big question would then be: Would right-wing politicians then try to stop people from getting it?

 

[Vast LWC]

You know, you really have to love how all the work on treating a disease comes from for-profit Pharma Corporations...

...And all the work on CURES comes from charities and the Federal Government.

That's really telling.

 

[jake]

If it cures AIDS there is hope for millions

 

[waltky]

HIV Positive Man Infects Thousands Of Partners...

HIV-positive man who intentionally infected ‘thousands’ of partners turns himself in
Friday, December 30 2011, - Michigan health officials issue alert, encourage possible victims to get tested immediately

Hundreds of Michigan residents -- and others -- may have been infected with HIV by a man who told police he’d been on a three-year mission to transmit the disease to as many people as he could, MSNBC reports. Police arrested David Dean Smith, 51, last week after he turned himself in -- and admitted he had unprotected sex with "thousands" of partners with the intention of killing them by infecting them with the virus. Only two possible victims have yet been identified. Smith's mission to sicken his lovers likely stretched to other states including anyone he may have seduced via Yahoo! Personals, as he did with the one of two victims who came forward. "He's charming," the alleged victim, who didn't want to be identified, told 24 Hour News 8. "He's very charming."

Records from Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services, where Smith had been admitted recently because he was "suicidal," indicated he is "sexually aroused by causing pain to females," according to court documents. The woman, who was diagnosed with HIV in October 2008, said Smith told her there were 3,000 victims including men and women. "He hits drifters," said the alleged victim. "He hits people who are young. He hits young women, and from what I understand, he hits men too. Those are his targets."

Health officials released an alert to residents of Kent County Michigan that "possibly hundreds have been exposed to HIV," and encouraged possible victims to come forward and be tested. Kent County Health Department spokesperson Lisa LaPlante said this is the first time they have seen someone deliberately trying to spread HIV to so many people. "We want to make sure that anyone who may have injected drugs with , who may have had sex with him, does come forward and get tested," LaPlante said. "We want to make sure that they're not spreading the virus to anyone else."

Before his arrest, Smith texted the alleged victim: "Turning myself into the law, my life is over. Take care. Always love you." Smith, currently at Kent County Jail where he is being held in lieu of $100,000 bond, has been charged with two felony counts of failure to disclose HIV status to a sexual partner, a charge carrying a four-year jail sentence and a $5,000 fine. Smith's attorney, Richard E. Zambon, said he is "exploring all options" in his client's defense, and specified "I am concerned about his mental health."

Read more: HIV-positive man who intentionally infected

 

[waltky]

Harnessing the body's own response to HIV may be used to develop vaccine...

Body's anti-HIV 'training manual' offers vaccine hopes
3 April 2013 > The body's own "training manual" for successfully attacking HIV has been recorded by scientists and it is hoped it can be used to design vaccines.

HIV mutates in order to survive the onslaught of a patient's immune system. However, some patients develop highly effective antibodies that can neutralise huge swathes of HIV mutants. An analysis of the arms race between body and virus, published in the journal Nature, has shown how these antibodies are made. When someone is infected with HIV, their body produces antibodies to attack it. But the virus mutates and evades the offensive, so the body produces new antibodies that the virus then evades and the war goes on.

However, after about four years of this struggle some patients hit on to a winner by targeting something the virus finds harder to change - an Achilles heel. "Even though the virus mutates and there are literally millions of quasi-species of virus because of all these mutations, but there are parts the virus can't change otherwise the virus cannot infect - these are the vulnerable sites," Prof Barton Haynes, of Duke University, in North Carolina, told the BBC. At this stage of the infection it is far too late to make a difference for the patient as the virus is hiding in untouchable reservoirs. However, some researchers believe that vaccines that encourage the body to produce these "broadly neutralising antibodies" may give people immunity to the virus.


Super antibody

The research team's study is based on a patient in Africa who had a rapid diagnosis, about four weeks after being infected with the virus. They were eventually able to produce an antibody named CH103 that could neutralise 55% of HIV samples. It was not produced in one easy step. Rather it was the product of the war of the immune system and HIV trying to out-evolve each other. However, through regular genetic analyses of both the immune system and virus, researchers could piece together each of the steps that culminated in the production of CH103. It is like a training manual for the immune system. Prof Haynes said: "What we were able to do was map out the arms race of both virus and antibody, and in doing so we have now a map. "This is the first time we've been able to see the actual road map." He said the challenge now was to see if re-creating those steps could lead to a viable vaccine.

However, he said it would almost certainly need to be a vaccine combining multiple "Achilles heels" - in the same way that HIV therapies are a combination of drug treatments. Prof Jane Anderson, consultant at Homerton hospital in London and chair of the British HIV Association, said: "The study gives important insights into the ways in which the human immune system responds to HIV infection and increases our understanding about the relationships between the virus and the human host. "This is another welcome step on the path to develop vaccines against HIV." Dr Sarah Joseph, who tests HIV vaccines at the Medical Research Council clinical trials unit, said: "This paper is really interesting. Some people do make antibodies that neutralise a lot of HIV virus, bit it is not of use to them as they produce it way too late." She said harnessing these antibodies "could be a big deal" and there was "even talk about mass-producing antibodies and infusing people with them".

BBC News - Body's anti-HIV 'training manual' offers vaccine hopes

 

[whitehall]

I hope it works but it seems to be a sissie pipe dream. The "A" in Aids still stands for acquired.

 

[Politico]

There is no cure for Aids, cancer, diabetes or anything else.

 

[waltky]

Did not prevent infection or reduce the amount of HIV in the blood...

HIV Vaccine Study Cancelled
April 26, 2013 - The U.S. National Institutes of Health has cancelled a study testing an experimental HIV vaccine because scientists concluded it did not prevent infection or reduce the amount of HIV in the blood. HIV is the virus that causes AIDS.

The so-called HVTN 505 study began in 2009 and is one of several such studies underway to find an effective AIDS vaccine. The study involved over 2,500 volunteers, specifically men who have sex with men and transgender people who have sex with men. "This trial has provided a clear, swift answer about a specific vaccine strategy. It's not the answer we hoped for, but the search doesn't end here," Mitchell Warren, executive director of the nonprofit group AVAC: Global Advocacy for HIV Prevention, said in a statement. While the failure of the vaccine is a blow to HIV vaccine research, the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Disease said it would continue to monitor the volunteers.

The experimental vaccine in the cancelled trials was based on a common cold virus. It was used to introduce HIV genes into the body to prime the immune system to provide a vaccine boost. Matthew Rose, a participant HVTN 505 study, remained hopeful that an HIV vaccine will eventually be developed. "These results do not change the fundamental view that an AIDS vaccine remains critical to any long-term strategy to end the AIDS epidemic," Rose told Reuters.

There are two traditional methods for creating a vaccine. One uses a weakened or attenuated version of a live virus to generate an immune response. The other uses a dead virus. Both methods are proven to be safe and effective, except when it comes to HIV. Vaccine candidates produced by these methods simply have not been successful in people when it comes to the AIDS virus. A Thai study from 2009 still has many hopeful. But even that study involving a vaccine known as RV 144 was judged to provide only 31 percent protection against HIV.

HIV Vaccine Study Cancelled